


Speaking with Serpents

by heliantheae



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Gen, Goblins, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Parseltongue, Snakes, herpetology
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-08-23
Updated: 2021-02-28
Packaged: 2021-03-06 20:54:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 15
Words: 34,066
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26055292
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/heliantheae/pseuds/heliantheae
Summary: In which Harry would like nothing more than to become a world-renowned herpetologist, and he won't let a little thing like the existence of magic get in his way. If that means attending a school called Hogwarts—and really, how is he supposed to framethaton his college applications—then so be it.
Relationships: Arthur Weasley/Molly Weasley, Sirius Black/Remus Lupin
Comments: 310
Kudos: 546
Collections: Avidreaders HP WIP faves, Not to be misplaced, Reading is one form of escape. Running for your life is another.





	1. In the Beginning

**Author's Note:**

> me: writes nothing for more than a month  
> also me: instead of finishing literally anything, why not something new?
> 
> anyway, this is incredibly self-indulgent and i'm having a good time. i'll finish it sometime in the next five years probably.

The thin, bespectacled boy spent every single recess crouched next to the chainlink fence that separated the playground from an empty, overgrown lot. After ascertaining that he wasn’t relieving himself or burning ants with a magnifying glass, the playground monitors left him to it. 

“The Potter boy is still at it?” Carol asked when she arrived for duty. 

Susan made a vague gesture without looking up from the battered paperback she was reading. “He’s not hurting anyone.”

“Still, he’s a bit odd, isn’t he?”

“Oh, I don’t know. Children go through phases. My youngest wouldn’t shut up about dinosaurs at that age.”

Carol wrinkled her nose. “Dinosaurs are all very well, but snakes? They make my skin crawl.”

“He’ll be England’s next great naturalist, or he’ll be in prison by the time he’s twenty,” Susan predicted, and she turned a page. 

Oblivious to the fact that he was the cause of a great deal of gossip, consternation, and interest among the staff members at his primary school, Harry Potter continued his conversation with an elderly grass snake. Well, it was less of a conversation and more of a lecture. Harry didn’t mind. He’d learned more from the snake in the past ten minutes than he had all morning in class. 

_Compost heaps are the best place to lay eggs. Decomposing matter gives off heat, so they stay warmer in case of cold snaps._

_England has plenty of those,_ Harry agreed wisely; he knew that the many intricacies and failings of the English weather were a favorite topic of conversation among adults. 

_Horrible, frigid island,_ said the snake. _I’m not as young as I used to be, you know. My bones ache in the cold._

Harry, who had broken his collarbone when Dudley pushed him down the stairs last year, was no stranger to aching bones. He frowned down at the snake. _I’m sorry. Is there anything I can do to help?_

_It’s kind of you to offer, but no. You are so very young._

_What does that have to do with anything?_

The snake raised her head and flicked his arm with her tongue. _Someday, likely soon, I will go to the Land of Eternal Winter. My bones will not ache then, and I’ll sleep peacefully._

 _You’re going to Norway?_ Harry asked, alarmed. He’d seen part of a documentary about Scandanavia on the telly and knew all about Norway. It seemed like a very long way to go for some sleep, and the snake didn’t even like cold weather. 

_Oh, child,_ the snake sighed. _Not Norway. The Land of Eternal Winter is where snakes go when we die._

_Why didn’t you say so? I know all about death._

_Do you?_

Harry nodded. _Of course. My parents are dead. Do you think you’ll see them there?_

_Perhaps. I don’t know where humans go when they die. Were they speakers like you?_

_I don’t know. They died when I was really little._

_Well,_ said the snake. _If I see them I’ll tell them all about you, how’s that?_

_Only the good things!_

If snakes could roll their eyes, this one would. _Only the good things. Now, your outdoor time is almost over. You had better go line up with the other children._

_Bye!_

_Goodbye,_ said the snake.

\-------

Harry’s obsession with snakes only grew as he aged. By the time he was ten, he had read every single book about snakes in both the school library and the local public libraries that were within walking distance. He knew everything there was to know about England’s three native snake species—the grass snake, the common European adder, and the smooth snake. Or, as they were also known, _Natrix natrix, Vipera berus,_ and _Coronella austriaca_. The grass snake and the smooth snake were cousins, sort of, since they were both in the family _Colubridae_. The adder fell into the _Viperidae_ family, so they were different. Harry loved all of them, although taxonomy made his head hurt.

Aunt Petunia had put him in charge of all garden-related activities as soon as he was old enough to tell an ornamental plant from a weed, which meant he spent long hours every summer pulling weeds and conversing with various snakes. As long as the garden was aesthetically pleasing by the end of the day, Aunt Petunia left him in peace. That meant she was blissfully unaware of the clutches of grass snake eggs incubating in her compost heap. There weren’t any adders or smooth snakes living in the yard. Vipers shied away from humans, uninterested in being killed because people feared their venom. Harry thought the hysteria surrounding them was a bit ridiculous. Common European adders had only killed fourteen people since 1876–far fewer than were killed by horse-drawn carriages or volcanoes or vending machines in a given year. 

The smooth snakes preferred less manicured areas, preferably heathland. Nothing of the sort could be found on Privet Drive. Still, the two species occasionally visited. Being able to talk to a human, even a small, sweaty one, was something of a novelty for them. 

Apparently, being able to talk to snakes wasn’t a common ability. Before several snakes assured Harry that he was the only one they spoke with, he had thought it was one of those things everyone did but no one talked about, like scratching themselves in public or just eating a sweet even if there was a little bit of the wrapper still stuck to it. He’d never read about anyone talking to snakes either unless Eve from the Bible counted, and Harry didn’t think she should. Christianity had really given snakes a bad rap. 

_Grass snakes were considered sacred by Baltic pagans_ he once made the mistake of informing a grass snake. Snakes were, from the bottoms of their cold, reptilian hearts, incredibly vain creatures. If ego was a thing scientists could quantify, they would be shocked at the results fielded by the Privet Drive grass snake population. 

_You’re not properly a constrictor, since you don’t kill your prey that way, you just subdue it,_ he apologetically informed the nearby smooth snakes. _But! You give birth to live young and that’s pretty cool._ Harry, having seen the process, would much rather everything just hatched out of an egg. He didn’t tell the smooth snakes that though. 

_Adders are the only species of snake found in Scotland_ he told the adders. _And twelve percent of adder bites result in hospitalization_

 _This wouldn’t be a problem if humans just left us alone,_ one particularly prickly male sighed. 

Harry’s oddities didn’t end with speaking to snakes, to the outrage of the Dursleys and his own general chagrin. No, strange things happened to Harry all the time. Some of them were useful, like being able to heat rocks for his reptilian friends or disappearing and finding himself somewhere new when Dudley was after him. If he really concentrated he could unlock the door on his cupboard at night, but that always gave him a headache. Mostly his talents were baffling. He’d turned a teacher’s hair blue and grown his hair back after Aunt Petunia shaved most of his head. He had once shrunk a horrible brown sweater she had been trying to foist off on him. Another time, he stopped a pan full of hot bacon grease from slopping down his front. 

It’s not that he wasn’t grateful for his strange abilities—they’d actually saved him a lot of trouble and he liked being able to help the snakes—but he wouldn’t mind being normal. The Dursleys might like him better that way, at the very least. Normalcy wasn’t something Harry was destined for though, which was confirmed for him when an owl dropped a letter on his head several days before his eleventh birthday. 

The grass snake he’d been talking to disappeared in a cloud of colorful language and refused to come out, even when Harry assured her that the bird was gone. _Suit yourself_ he told the snake, and he tucked the letter in his shirt for further examination later. 

That night, safely ensconced within his cupboard, Harry fished the letter out of his shirt. 

__

_Mr. H. Potter  
The Cupboard under the Stairs  
4 Privet Drive  
Little Whinging  
Surrey_

He was skeptical by nature, stemming from a combination of nothing ever having gone right in his entire life and a keen interest in the scientific method—mostly the former, if he was being honest with himself, though he rarely made the effort—and the letter seemed worthy of skepticism. Whoever had written it knew where he slept, which was unsettling. He wasn’t aware of anyone save the Dursleys that knew about his cupboard, but the letter had been delivered by an owl. Animals didn’t like the Dursleys. They were wiser than most people that way.

The contents of the letter were even less helpful than the address. 

__

_HOGWARTS SCHOOL of WITCHCRAFT and WIZARDRY_

_Headmaster: Albus Dumbledore  
(Order of Merlin, First Class, Grand Sorc., Chf. Warlock,  
Supreme Mugwump, International Confed. of Wizards)_

_Dear Mr. Potter,_

_We are pleased to inform you that you have been accepted at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. Please find enclosed a list of all necessary books and equipment.  
The term begins on 1 September. We await your owl by no later than 31 July._

_Yours sincerely,_

_Minerva McGonagall_

_Deputy Headmistress_

Harry flipped to the enclosed shopping list and frowned down at it. Assuming this wasn’t a hoax—and he was reserving judgment—none of this would be readily available at the local grocery store. And what did Minerva McGonagall mean when she said she awaited his owl? Was he supposed to catch an owl and somehow convince it to take a letter back to her?

Well, Harry supposed, there wasn’t any time like the present. He glared at the lock on his cupboard until it clicked, then crept out into the hallway. His head throbbed, but in the dim light, it was bearable. His first step toward potential wizardry rather than just general freakishness was to find a pen and write back to this McGonagall woman. He did so on the back of the envelope his letter came in, not wanting to risk the Dursleys noticing paper missing.

_Dear Deputy Headmistress McGonagall,_

_I received your owl admitting me to Hogwarts, but I’m not sure what it means. I don’t have any money either. Do you offer scholarships for tuition and supplies?_

_Sincerely,_

_Harry Potter_

Hogwarts was probably a boarding school, he reasoned, if students were allowed to bring pets. He would really like to attend a boarding school. Nine months away from the Dursleys sounded like heaven. He slipped out the back door and went to where the grass snakes nested under the shed. Grass snakes are diurnal, meaning they’re awake during the day like people are. Harry feels a little bad about knocking on the side of the shed.

_Um, hello? Sorry to bother you._

A few moments later, the grouchiest of the older snakes emerged. _What do you want?_

_I was wondering if you could tell me where to find an owl._

_Why in Jörmungandr’s name would you want to do that?_

_I need to mail a letter._

The snake appeared to consider it. It was an odd request, Harry knew, but snakes didn’t particularly care about things like logic and social norms, a universality proved when this particular snake said, _very well. There’s a nest of barn owls that live in the abandoned church three miles west of here. They’re the closest._

 _Thank you,_ Harry said to the snake, who slithered back under the shed instead of replying. He sighed to himself and began walking in the direction the snake had indicated. 

The trek took an hour and a half. The suburbs were quiet at night, the dark interrupted by streetlights and the flickering glow from the occasional television. Harry disturbed a stray cat and a horde of rats while creeping through an alley, but the walk was otherwise uneventful. 

When he finally arrived at the abandoned church—and really, if that wasn’t material for a horror movie Harry didn’t know what was—he took a moment to look around. Ominous shadows, check. Graveyard, check. A sign warning that the building was structurally unsound, check. For the first time since receiving the letter, Harry stopped to consider whether this was a good idea. Then he thought about nine months away from the Dursleys, even at a school where everyone thought they were a wizard and decided that it was worth a shot. 

He had to crawl through a broken stained glass window to get into the church since some enterprising individual had decided to discourage teenage shenanigans by nailing the doors shut. He made it through without any new cuts or scrapes, then spent several seconds examining the miscellaneous collection of beer cans and cigarette stubs he landed amongst after jumping down from the window ledge. That enterprising individual had evidently failed. He glanced around. Beer cans, beer cans, a presumably used syringe…and two glowing eyes! That was promising. 

“Hello?” Harry said. 

“Who?” 

“Oh, um. I’m Harry. Harry Potter.”

“Who?”

“Right, you wouldn’t know me. I live over on Privet Drive. I’m almost eleven and I like snakes. I was wondering if you’d be willing to deliver a letter?”

“Who?”

“Oh, yeah. I suppose owls can’t read, so you don’t know who it’s addressed to. Her name is weird, something with an M. Minerva? McGonagall? So she’s probably Scottish, I think. She’s the Deputy Headmistress? Of Hogwarts?” 

“Who?”

“I know, it’s a stupid name. They’re wizards or something.” 

A big barn owl swooped silently out of the eaves and landed on the pew closest to Harry. “Who?”

He offered the owl the envelope. The owl stared at it. “You don’t have hands,” Harry said, realizing another flaw with this plan. 

The owl looked patronizing if that was possible. It hopped closer, grabbed the letter in its beak, and took off. Harry hoped that meant it would take the letter to Scotland and not drop it in a field somewhere the first time it spotted a mouse. 

He took his time wandering back to Privet Drive, not eager to lock himself back in his cupboard. That’s why he was meandering through an empty playground near midnight when a tall, imposing woman appeared out of nowhere directly in the center of the merry-go-round. To her credit, she didn’t stumble and it only took her a moment to get her bearings. 

“You,” she said, pointing at Harry.

“Me?” he asked as if there was anyone else around. 

She really was intimidating. Her hair was black, shot through with grey, and pulled back into a tight bun. She was wearing what looked like Mrs. Figg’s curtains. “Are you Harry Potter?” she inquired. “You must be. You look just like James.”

“Who?” Harry asked blankly, sounding rather like an owl himself. 

“James,” the woman repeated slowly. “James Potter. You are Harry Potter, aren’t you?”

“Well, yes,” said Harry. “Who are you?”

“I’m Minerva McGonagall. I received your owl.” And he’d thought it would take much longer to reach Scotland, but perhaps that was part of the wizardry. 

“Oh, good. I wasn’t sure the owl would find you.”

So this was Minerva McGonagall. Other than the weird drape dress, she didn’t look much like a wizard. She wasn’t even wearing a hat. “Post owls are very intelligent, Mr. Potter.”

Harry made the executive decision not to tell her he had accosted a random, likely unemployed owl in an abandoned church. “Right,” he said. “So. Why are you here?”

McGonagall pulled a crumpled envelope out of her robe. She smoothed it out to reveal his letter. “Would you mind answering a few questions, Harry?” she asked in that horrible, gentle tone of voice adults used when they were trying to figure if something was terribly wrong.

Harry repressed the urge to sigh. Nine months without the Dursleys, he reminded himself. “Okay.”

“You’re living with your mother’s sister, aren’t you? Petunia?” 

Harry nodded. “Aunt Petunia and Uncle Vernon.”

“Do they...treat you well?”

Harry followed her gaze to the part of the envelope that contained words like “cupboard” and “under the stairs.” Perhaps writing on the back of the envelope hadn’t been the best idea. 

“They could be worse?”

“Did they tell you anything about your parents? Who they were? How they died?”

Back on stable ground, Harry nodded. “In a car accident. My dad was drunk.” 

“In a—” McGonagall’s lips thinned to the point of invisibility. “Would you like to get dinner, Harry?”

“It’s midnight.”

“Yes, it is.”

Harry shrugged. It wasn’t as if he had much to lose. 

Half an hour later and one very discombobulating trip through space? Time? An unsettling combination of the two? Harry found himself eating French toast and frowning at McGonagall while she daintily tucked into a strawberry crepe. The crepe was a point in her favor—the Dursleys didn’t approve of foreign food. The utter nonsense she was spewing in between bites was less encouraging.

“Surely you’ve made something odd happen when you were upset?” she pressed.

Harry thought about turning his teacher’s hair blue. He thought about shrinking that horrible sweater. “What about when I’m not upset? I can talk to snakes even when I’m happy. Do you mean stuff like that?”

A lifetime of watching Uncle Vernon for the slightest sign of an impending explosion meant that Harry saw McGonagall’s hand tighten imperceptibly on her fork. He eyed her warily. 

“That’s a rather unique skill,” she said slowly. “What do the snakes tell you?”

“Lots of stuff,” Harry said cautiously. Unique wasn’t a good thing, in his experience. “They complain about the weather. They talk about good places to lay in the sun.” 

She appeared to relax slightly, which was a relief. “You don’t use them to spy on people?”

“What does a snake want to spy on people for?” Harry asked. “They have better things to do.” And so, quite frankly, did Harry. People were all very well—except when they weren’t, which was usually—but they had nothing on snakes.

McGonagall appeared to shake herself, reminiscent of a cat that stepped in a puddle. “You’re right, Harry. I’m being daft. For a moment you reminded me of someone.” 

“No one good?” Harry hazarded. 

“No one good,” McGonagall agreed darkly, then seemed to remember that she was talking to a ten-year-old. “At any rate, you’re a wizard, Harry.”

“Okay,” said Harry. “Is that why you can teleport?”

“Apparate,” McGonagall corrected. “It’s the wizarding version of having a driver’s license, essentially. And yes.”

“My parents were wizards, weren’t they? What did my dad need to be driving drunk for then?” Harry asked, feeling a flair of some sort of unpleasant emotion. If his parents could teleport, there was no reason for them to have died in a car accident, thus leaving him with the Dursleys. 

“I don’t think James even knew how to drive a car. Lily did, but she hated to. Neither of them was much for drinking. It was too dangerous to dull your reflexes back then,” McGonagall sighed. “Your parents were murdered, Harry. By a very bad man.” 

“Murdered?” 

“There was a war. A man—You-Know-Who, as speaking his name was taboo and remains unwise—wanted to cleanse the wizarding world of those he deemed to be impure. Your parents, myself, and many others objected. Rather strenuously. Your parents were heavily involved in the resistance movement. Eventually, You-Know-Who decided they were important enough to warrant killing. He went to your home Halloween night of 1981 and killed them.”

“Where was I?” It seemed odd that a baby would survive something that killed two people who were essentially soldiers. 

“Oh, Harry. You were there. He tried to kill you too, we think, but something went wrong. He was killed instead.”

“I killed him?” Harry asked, alarmed. It was a welcome distraction from feeling relieved that his parents had been murdered rather than being killed—and by extension abandoning him to the Dursleys—by their own irresponsible choices. 

“No one is quite sure. Personally, I suspect your mother did. Lily always was clever.” 

That made much more sense, and Harry said as much.

“Yes, well,” said McGonagall. “There are those who believe it was you and they’re rather...enthusiastic in their belief. They call you The-Boy-Who-Lived.” 

“That’s stupid,” Harry decided, the words escaping before he could stop them. He clapped a hand over his mouth, but McGonagall didn’t seem upset. Instead, she inclined her head slightly. 

“Be that as it may, that’s why you were given to the Dursleys to raise. It was deemed safer for you.” 

Harry thought about the various bones he’d had broken, the nights he’d gone hungry, and long days locked in his cupboard. “They must be dangerous,” he said doubtfully. 

“Less so than your current guardians, I suspect. I told Albus they were the worst sort of Muggles. Tell me, Harry,” she said, leaning forward. “Would you want to live somewhere else?” 

“With someone else?”

“Yes.”

“Sure,” Harry said. “When can we leave?”

McGonagall blinked. Then she said something that sounded odd and produced a spectral silver tabby cat. “Amelia, it’s Minerva. Our usual place.” 

“Don’t the, um, Muggles notice? That sort of thing?”

“Does this look like a Muggle establishment?”

Harry glanced around. He’d been focused on trying to decide what to order that wouldn’t upset McGonagall—how expensive was too expensive? Did she disapprove of foreign food? Would she be affronted if he ordered something too cheap? And then he’d been focused on inhaling his French toast before she could change her mind about feeding him. Now that he was looking though, most of the people in the restaurant were also dressed like someone had stolen all of their clothing and forced them to wrap themselves in the curtains. There were candles everywhere too. In retrospect, it was rather obvious. 

“No?”

“No,” McGonagall confirmed. 

“So, the wizarding world isn’t that different from the Muggle world?”

“There are some notable cultural differences. Think of it as traveling to a foreign country without leaving Britain.” 

“Is there a travel guide? Or a telly program I could watch?” Harry asked.

“That’s not a bad idea,” a woman said. Harry twitched violently. “Sorry, dear,” she said. “I didn’t mean to startle you.” 

“Amelia, thank you for coming so quickly. This is Harry Potter.”

The woman eyed Harry with renewed interest. She wasn’t as tall as McGonagall, but she exuded an air of authority from the tips of her leather boots to the roots of her auburn hair. “Is he really?”

“Er, yes,” said Harry. 

“And you have him because…?”

“Irregularities with his Hogwarts letter,” McGonagall said promptly. “After his mother’s sister, who would be next-in-line to be his guardian?”

“Let’s see,” said Amelia, pulling a file out of nowhere and making Harry blink. “Sirius Black, Marlene McKinnon, Mary McDonald, Alice Longbottom, Peter Pettigrew, Frank Longbottom, Petunia Dursley...she’s the last on the list.” 

“What about Remus?” McGonagall wanted to know. 

Harry listened with interest. He had yet to be impressed with any of the adults in his life, and none of the people on the list had apparently wanted him, but he wasn’t a baby anymore. Some people didn’t like babies, he knew, but he could take care of himself now. He mostly just needed somewhere to sleep, and he didn’t even take up that much space. 

“What about Remus’s condition?” Amelia returned.

“It’s manageable with Wolfsbane.”

“Legally—”

“Legally the Ministry would rather abandon war orphans than see them with a caring guardian if that guardian is a werewolf?”

“Minerva…”

“Don’t ‘Minerva’ me,” said McGonagall.

“You know I don’t agree with all of the Ministry’s policies…”

McGonagall presented her with her trump card—the envelope with Harry’s mailing address on it. “I told Albus they were the worst sort of Muggles.” 

“Fine,” said Amelia, although she didn’t sound happy about it. Harry considered telling them that the cupboard really wasn’t so bad—it was downright tolerable compared to going hungry or the time he’d had to relocate his own shoulder after Unclue Vernon had wrenched his arm particularly violently—but decided against it. Amelia was still talking anyway. “Where’s Remus these days?”

“He’ll be here shortly,” McGonagall said, sounding incredibly pleased with herself. “You don’t have to stay with Remus if you don’t want to, Harry. We can find someone else. He was one of your father’s closest friends though, so I thought he would be a good place to start.”

Harry, who had been half-listening while sneaking sugar packets and the little containers of jelly that restaurants have into his pockets, looked up guiltily. “What?”

“You don’t have to stay with anyone you don’t want to,” McGonagall said. “Amelia will file some...creative paperwork, whatever you decide.” 

“Do you know how many years in Azkaban I’d be sentenced to if the Ministry knew half of what I’ve done for you?” Amelia muttered.

“A good thing you’re the head of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement then, isn’t it?” McGonagall asked archly. “Ah, here’s Remus.”


	2. Chapter 2

Harry eyed Remus Lupin critically over the remnants of his French toast. It’s mostly crumbs and syrup, and only that much because he doubted McGonagall would be pleased if he licked the plate clean. Lupin was tall, thin, and rather sorry looking, particularly next to the two witches. Harry possessed two of those three qualities himself, so he supposed he couldn’t judge overly much. He could be as judgemental as he pleased about the look on Lupin’s face, however, which was rather like someone who had seen a ghost. 

“Harry?” he asked faintly. 

“Remus, good evening. Or morning, as the case may be. Good of you to come on such short notice,” McGonagall said. “Harry, this is Remus Lupin.”

“Hi,” Harry said cautiously. 

“Hello, Harry,” Lupin cleared his throat. “I haven’t seen you since you were a baby.” 

“I don’t remember you,” Harry said, unsure what else to say. “I’m sorry.”

“No, that’s for the best,” Lupin glanced at Amelia. “Why am I here?”

“Because Minerva doesn’t believe laws apply to her,” Amelia muttered.

“Because I was hoping you’d be willing to take Harry in,” McGonagall said, ignoring Amelia.

Lupin blinked at them, then at Harry. “I’d love to, of course, but there’s the matter of my condition…”

That sounded like an excuse to Harry, who hastened to reassure the man, “you don’t have to if you don’t want to. I’ll understand.”

“No, that’s not it at all,” frustration flashed across Lupin’s face, so quickly Harry nearly missed it. It was replaced by the kind of bone-deep exhaustion a lifetime of uncomfortable conversations causes. “Harry, I’m dangerous. I’m a werewolf.”

“And I’m apparently a wizard. So?”

“Petunia didn’t tell him anything,” McGonagall said softly. “He doesn’t know.”

“You left him with Petunia? That harpy?” Lupin demands, distracted from whatever internal agonizing he’d been doing. “She hated Lily and James.”

Well, Harry reflected, at least he had that in common with his parents. If Aunt Petunia didn’t like his parents, maybe his parents would have liked him, if they’d lived. It was a good feeling. Aloud, he said, “I’m right here, you know. What’s wrong with being a werewolf?”

The adults exchanged glances. Harry hated it when adults did that. “I’m a monster, Harry. I couldn’t take care of you.”

“You don’t have to take care of me,” Harry argued. He hadn’t realized how much hope McGonagall’s appearance had sparked in him. He wasn’t going to lose that feeling just because Lupin had self-esteem issues, not without a fight. “I can cook and clean, and I’ll stay out of your way. You won’t even know I’m there.”

“Why don’t we return to the Dursleys’ house and discuss this more,” McGonagall said.

Harry frowned at her. This could be a trick to get him to return without a fuss. If that was the case, she needn’t have bothered. It wasn’t as if he had anywhere else to go. Now he looked thoughtfully at Lupin. McGonagall had been upset about the cupboard. If Lupin had known and liked his parents, then perhaps he would also be upset about the cupboard and McGonagall was counting on that to manipulate him into taking Harry.

Harry himself would prefer to live with someone who actually wanted him, but it was starting to look as if that wasn’t an option. He’d had rather enough of the devil he knew, so perhaps it was time for the devil he didn’t. It was possible, Harry thought, that Lupin could be worse than the Dursleys. More than possible. Uncle Vernon was fond of detailing the worst of what happened to children in foster care whenever he felt that Harry had grown too comfortable with his lot in life. Then again, there were three Dursleys and only one Lupin. Not bad odds, and Amelia, for all that she was some sort of cop and Harry wasn’t impressed with the legal system, didn’t appear to find Lupin threatening. That was a good sign too. 

He watched as McGonagall paid the bill, then reluctantly took her arm for another horrible teleportation trip. “Number 4, Privet Drive,” she told Lupin and Amelia before vanishing, taking Harry with her.

They reappeared in the back garden with a soft pop, startling the lone grass snake getting a head start on the day. It was, Harry realized, approaching dawn. 

_Ah!_ said the snake. 

_Sorry! We didn’t mean to startle you,_ Harry told her. 

McGonagall, who had twitched when he started hissing, stared at him. “Is there a snake here?” she asked.

“Here,” Harry gestured at where the snake had positioned herself in the best place to catch the first rays of the sun. _This is McGonagall. She’s a witch._

_Can she speak like you?_

_I don’t think so._

_Then I don’t care who she is. Tell her not to step on me._

“What did you say?” McGonagall asked, sounding somewhere between curious and full of trepidation. 

“I told her your name and that you’re a witch,” Harry explained. “She wanted to know if you could speak like I can, and when I said you can’t she said that she doesn’t care who you are as long as you don’t step on her by accident.”

“I...see,” McGonagall said. 

“Snakes don’t really care about people,” Harry felt obligated to tell her. “It’s not personal.” 

“No, that’s fine. Seeing you speak to her was just unexpected.”

“I won’t talk to them around you if you don’t like it,” Harry offered, figuring that perhaps whoever she had known that could talk to snakes in the past had hurt her somehow and now the hissing made her think of him. Men with mustaches and women wearing pearls like Aunt Petunia does make him feel sick to his stomach, even if they were strangers he’d never met, so he understood. 

Amelia and Lupin appeared before she could respond, making the snake curse. 

_I can hold you if you’re worried about being stepped on,_ Harry told her. _I’m warm._

_Yes, that would be good. This is almost as bad as the last garden party that horrible woman had._

Harry hadn’t liked Aunt Petunia’s last garden party either, mainly because he’d spent the entire afternoon in his cupboard and then had to clean up afterward. He reached down and picked up the snake, letting her crawl into the sleeve of his over-sized sweatshirt. He looked to find Amelia and Lupin staring at him in open-mouthed amazement. 

“She didn’t want to be stepped on,” Harry said.

“Harry’s a Parselmouth,” McGonagall added. “Surprise.”

“That’s quite a unique ability,” Amelia said, once she’d recovered from the shock. “I wasn’t aware that particular trait ran in the Potter family.”

“It doesn’t,” Lupin told her. “But James’s mother was a Black.”

Amelia eyed Harry with renewed interest. “That’s right—Dorea was always so kind. She made it easy to forget.”

“What’s that have to do with anything?” Harry asked. 

“The Blacks are—were, I suppose—a very old wizarding family. There are a lot of normally recessive traits you might have inherited, and since Lily was Muggle-born they might have come through,” Lupin explained. 

Harry still wasn’t sure what any of that meant, but the adults had shifted to debating whether they should wake up the Dursleys. His vote was a resounding ‘no,’ but it didn’t look like they were going to ask him. 

“—should at least explain where he’s been,” Amelia said, which didn’t bode well for Harry leaving and never coming back. 

“Really, I doubt they’ve noticed,” he said as soon as there was a pause in the conversation, and then he took a chance. “I can lock myself back in my cupboard.” 

It paid off. “Your what?” Lupin asked, having gone very still. 

“I sleep in the cupboard under the stairs,” Harry said. “They lock me in at night and sometimes during the day when they’re angry with me. They don’t know I can undo the lock, so as long as I’m there when Aunt Petunia gets up, they won’t know I’ve been gone.”

“Why don’t you show us your cupboard, Harry?” Amelia asked. “Here, I’ll Silence and Disillusion us.” 

She did something complicated with her wand that made it feel as if someone had cracked an egg over Harry’s head, and when he looked down his skin and clothes looked like a chameleon’s. He blended in completely with the garden shed. 

_Whatever that was, I hated it,_ grumbled the snake in his sleeve. 

Harry ignored her and led the adults into the house, creeping carefully to avoid making any noise. He opened his cupboard and gestured at its interior. Amelia lit her wand, and then they stood around staring. None of them said anything. Harry started to feel self-conscious. It wasn’t much—they’d known it was a cupboard, so they had no right to judge—and it was his. Perhaps they didn’t like the spiders? Harry knew Aunt Petunia hated them, but it wasn’t as if they were hurting anyone. It was nice to have company sometimes too. He’d scratched ‘Harry’s Room’ into a board with a nail several years ago. Did they think that was immature? Disrespectful? He was sure the Dursleys would be angry if they ever noticed. 

“Pack your things,” Lupin said tightly. “You can live with me.” 

Harry didn’t move. “Are you mad at me?”

“At you? No. At the Dursleys? Yes. Dumbledore? Absolutely. Amelia, so help me, Merlin, if you try and stop me—”

“I won’t,” Amelia said. “As it happens, I believe the Ministry just lost all of the files they had relating to both you and Harry. What a shame, we really ought to update the filing system, they told Lorcan McLaird nothing good would come from giving the memos sentience, et cetera, et cetera.” 

Harry took the biggest shirt he had, the one he usually used as a blanket, and laid it out flat. He piled the rest of his clothes on top of it, along with the tattered books he’d rescued when Dudley threw them out, his flashlight, also pilfered. He completed his packing with several half-melted plastic toy soldiers. More victims of Dudley’s destructive impulses. 

“Okay,” Harry said, picking up each of the shirt’s four corners so it acted like a bag. “I’m packed.”

It was then that he realized that the adults’ lips were moving, but he couldn’t hear them. They appeared to be in the middle of a heated argument. McGonagall was waving her finger in Amelia’s face; Lupin had a white-knuckled grip on his wand. The snake stuck her head out of his sleeve. _This is your nest?_ she asked disapprovingly. _You should have lived under the shed with us._

_I don’t think I would have fit._

_Nonsense. We could have dug you a nice space. You produce so much heat, we would have welcomed you._

_I’ll miss you,_ Harry said, the reality that he was leaving beginning to set in as he stared at his possessions. _You’ll be careful, won’t you? I don’t want the Dursleys to hurt you. They’ll kill you and crush the eggs if they find you._

_They are very stupid,_ the snake said reassuringly. _They won’t find us._

_If you’re sure. Is there anything I can do for you before I leave?_

_What did that book you told us about say? We are the peak of evolution. We survived millions of years without you, and we’ll survive millions more. Hey,_ the snake said, situating herself so she could look him in the eye. _That doesn’t mean we won’t miss you too though._

Harry scrubbed at his eyes with the sleeve that didn’t contain the snake. The motion attracted the adults’ attention. “Are you alright, Harry?” Lupin asked, suddenly audible again.

Harry nodded quickly. “I was saying goodbye to this snake. Do you mind if I say goodbye to the rest of them before we go?”

“Not at all.” 

Harry picked up his shirt bag and heads out to the back garden again, trailed awkwardly be the three adults. McGonagall was still hissing furiously at Amelia, but Harry couldn’t make out what she was saying. The sun had just started to peek over the roof of Number 2, so Harry set the snake down in a weak patch of sun.

_Come out!_ she shouted, as much as a snake could shout, anyway. _The speaker is leaving his nest!_

Snakes began to pour out from under the shed immediately, so quickly that McGonagall took a step back.

_He’s what?_

_Why?_

_Good for him!_

_Is there not enough prey for him here?_

_I’m going to live with this man,_ Harry gestured at Lupin. _He’ll be nicer to me._

The snakes studied Lupin, tasting the air around him with their tongues. Finally, they decided they approved. Harry was secretly relieved; he trusted their judgment more than his own. He said goodbye to them each individually, with a wary eye on the adults for any sign of impatience. Amelia and McGonagall continued to argue. Lupin watched the snakes with almost as much interest as they watched him. None of them looked impatient. 

Finally, Harry hefted his bag. “I’m ready to go.”

“Do you want to tell the Dursleys you’re leaving?” Lupin asked.

Harry thought about the Uncle Vernon-shaped bomb that was likely to set off. “No,” he said. “I’d rather not.”

“I’ll explain things to them,” McGonagall muttered.

“Actually, I will,” said Amelia, glaring at her friend. “Seeing as I have no desire to bail you out of Muggle jail again.” 

Lupin turned to look at them with something akin to amazement. “You’ve been arrested, Minerva?”

McGonagall sniffed. “And you haven’t? Anyway, it was the sixties. And I was justified.”

“Does Dumbledore know?” Lupin wanted to know.

“What Dumbledore doesn’t know won’t hurt him. Although,” she directed an angry look in the direction of the house, “I might.”

“Alright,” Amelia said, a little too brightly. “Harry, I’m sure you’re exhausted. Why don’t you and Remus go home and get some sleep? When you’ve rested up you can go shopping.”

“Shopping?” Harry asked. “What for?”

“A new wardrobe, books, school supplies, toys, furniture, anything you want,” said Amelia. “My treat.”

“I can cover it!” McGonagall protested.

“I’m technically in charge of the Black assets,” Lupin said, albeit in a much quieter voice. “I haven’t touched them, of course, not after what he did, but it would be rather poetic to spend that money on Harry, don’t you think?”

“It would,” Amelia agreed, and McGonagall nodded. 

“That settles it,” she said. “Harry, I’ll be seeing you in September. Please, feel free to write if you need anything.”

“Likewise,” Amelia said. “It was lovely to meet you.”

“You too,” Harry replied, slightly stunned by how quickly things had happened.

“Shall we?” Lupin offered Harry his arm.

“More—?” Harry started to say, intending to complain about the discomfort associated with teleportation. They disappeared into nothingness before he could.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> okay so we're not quite at diagon alley yet because I got distracted but. next chapter for sure. (please tell me if you notice me slipping into present tense anywhere. this is the only thing I'm writing in past tense right now/in the past year and switching back and forth is not going well. I went over this four times. my brain remains stubbornly in third person present.)

After he was done feeling sick to his stomach, Harry studied his surroundings. Remus Lupin’s house looked exactly like one might imagine a werewolf’s house would look, he reflected, if one assumed werewolves spent their human time as vaguely careworn men in their early thirties. It was a small cottage of sorts, made of stone and covered in ivy. The garden was a riot of color, full of plants he didn’t recognize and wildly overgrown. It made up the entirety of the yard; there wasn’t a lawn or a driveway. The property was surrounded by trees, which extended as far as Harry could see. 

“It’s not much,” Lupin said apologetically. 

“It’s brilliant,” Harry told him. “Where are we? Do you have snakes?”

Lupin blinked at him. “We’re in the magical part of Kielder Forest, in Northumberland. I don’t know about snakes; I’ve never seen one around, but they’re not exactly sociable creatures. You can explore all you’d like later, but I’m sure you’re exhausted. Let me show you your room.”

The inside of the cottage looked more like an antique shop than a house, the light streaming through the curtains almost sepia-toned. Overstuffed bookshelves lined every wall, and all of the furniture was a mash of orange, green, and unspeakable patterns that implied the decor had last been updated in the seventies. Lupin picked his way through the cluttered living room and a surprisingly clean kitchen to a tiny back entryway. He waved his wand, and a ladder appeared along with a trapdoor in the ceiling. The glance he shot Harry was a little anxious as if he was afraid of what Harry would think.

Personally, Harry thought that a bedroom that could only be accessed by climbing a ladder and then squeezing through a trapdoor was, in a word, wicked. 

“I bought this house using my mother’s maiden name during the war,” Lupin explained. “That way it would be harder to trace. The attic is a very small suite I set up as a safe room. Operatives that needed to lay low used to stay here. I haven’t been up there in years.” He frowned. “Actually, before I let you up, I should make sure no one left and dirty magazines or alcohol lying around. And I should clean it. I can’t imagine the dust by now—sorry. I’d have done all of this earlier if I’d known why Minerva was calling.”

“She seems nice,” Harry hazarded, “her and Amelia both.”

Lupin scrambled up the ladder with surprising agility. “They are,” he agreed, opening the trapdoor. He sneezed four times in rapid succession and Harry was briefly afraid he was going to fall, but then he climbed the rest of the way into the room above. “If they ever stopped bickering they’d be a force to be reckoned with. I was right about the dust,” here he sneezed again, “and the magazines. Jesus. Caradoc Dearborn was the last to stay here I think, so I can’t be too angry. Poor bast—um, fu—that’s not better, damn—fellow.”

“What happened to him?” Harry wanted to know.

Lupin sneezed again. “Hard to say. Probably murdered. We never did find his body. My bet is they turned him into an Inferius.”

“A what?”

“A bit like a Muggle zombie, except zombies are naturally occurring and have wills of their own. Inferi are just puppets.”

That, Harry thought, was rather horrible. Also, “are zombies are real?”

“Most things are real.”

“Unicorns?”

“Yes. There’s a herd of them in Kilder, actually. You might even see them—they like women and children.”

“Vampires?”

“They’re real too. Most don’t actively hunt humans, but you’ll still find them unsettling. Humans have some sort of instinct that recognizes them as a predator.”

“Are werewolves human?”

“Sort of. The biology behind lycanthropy is quite fascinating. It’s technically a virus, but it modifies the host’s DNA to the point that it’s nearly unrecognizable. It’s enough to change the host’s sense of smell, their hearing, their bone density, and even their general body composition—werewolves have, on average, 5% more skeletal muscle than the average human.”

None of that meant much to Harry, who was distracted by another thought. “Are there species of magical snakes? Are hydras real? Basilisks? Cockatrices? What about dragons?”

“Yes to all, although it’s been several hundred years since a basilisk was last seen. Do you ever get tired of asking questions?”

Harry considered this. “The Dursleys didn’t like it when I asked questions, so I guess I’ve never had the chance to.” 

“Well, you can ask me as many questions as you’d like, although I can’t guarantee I’ll know the answers to them. We can also owl order books about anything you’d like.” Lupin’s feet emerged from the trapdoor, followed by the rest of him. “There,” he said, sounding satisfied. “It ought to be habitable now.”

Harry eyed the items he was caring with thinly veiled skepticism. He had a stack of magazines clutched to his chest, and Harry could just make out a pair of heels on the corner of one cover. He also has some sort of dusty bottle that was giving off a smell like rubbing alcohol. Somehow, Harry doubted it was a cleaning product.

“Go on up,” Lupin said encouragingly. “We’ll go shopping tomorrow, so be thinking about what you want. If you want to Vanish the ladder and hide the door once you’re up there, just tap the top right corner of the door three times. It’s the same to bring the ladder back.”

Harry nodded, still having a hard time believing that magic was a thing he could do. He made his way up the ladder, dragging his makeshift t-shirt bag behind him. He tapped the upper right corner of the door per Lupin’s instructions, blinking when it vanished. He squinted. It hadn’t quite vanished—he could see the faint outline of the door. He tapped it again, and it reappeared. Again, and it vanished. That was incredibly cool.

He looked around, studying the room. The first thing he noticed was that there was a window. It was already better than his cupboard in that respect. The window was framed by green flannel curtains and set out of the wall to make room for a nook which, at this time of day, was soaked in a weak beam of sunlight. Centered against the far wall was a full-sized bed, and in one corner was a bookshelf. Lupin evidently hadn’t picked it over thoroughly, because even from here Harry could see several battered paperbacks whose covers were comprised primarily of abs. The rest of the books were all westerns, and there was a single newspaper dated May of 1981. 

He continued to poke around. The first door he tried led to a small closet. It contained a dresser and several jackets with impressive shoulder pads. The other door in the room led to a small bathroom, just big enough for a shower, toilet, and sink. The wallpaper was a satiny texture, and it was striped in two different shades of apricot. Harry unpacked his possessions. _The Hobbit, Black Beauty, Charlotte’s Web,_ and _The Once and Future King_ went on the bookshelf, as did the toy soldiers. He folded his clothes and packed them into the dresser, all except for the biggest shirt. He placed his flashlight within easy reach and, after closing the curtains to block out the sun, Harry slipped into the bed, curled around the shirt, and went to sleep.

\-------

It was dark when Harry woke up, unsure where he was. He was in a bed. Why—? Right. He was living with Lupin now, who was apparently a werewolf because werewolves were real. So were wizards, evidently, because he himself was one. Harry stared into the gloom. Being a wizard wasn’t doing him much good so far, especially since he had yet to develop the ability to see in the dark.

He gave up on going back to sleep and grabbed his flashlight. It had been just past dawn when he went to bed. That meant he’d slept the day away. He got up and fumbled around for a light switch for a while but couldn’t find one. Giving up on that too, he went to the bathroom and showered in the dark so as not to waste the flashlight’s battery. It wasn’t so bad, he reflected. He couldn’t see the horrible striped wallpaper in the dark. He changed into clean clothes, then sat in the blackness of the room for a while. That didn’t last for long; Harry was easily bored. 

He tapped the wooden frame of the trapdoor to make it reappear, then carefully crept down the ladder. It was dark on the first floor of the cottage too. There was no glowing clockface that he could see, so he was left stumbling around in the dark aided only by the weak light of his flashlight until a brighter light appeared under a doorway.

“Harry?” Lupin called.

Harry froze, cursing himself. “Sorry, Mr. Lupin,” he said. “I didn’t mean to wake you up.”

Lupin emerged from his room. He was holding his wand in one hand, which was what was producing the light. He was also wearing the most obnoxious red and gold checked pajamas Harry had ever seen. “Please, call me Remus,” Lupin, or Remus, Harry guessed, said. “And don’t worry about it. I was awake. We’ve really done a number on our sleeping habits, haven’t we?”

Harry, who had been cringing in preparation of being shouted at and thinking bitterly that Remus should have locked him in the attic if he hadn’t wanted him wandering around, considered that. “Really?” he asked.

“Really what?” Remus pointed his wand in the direction of the fireplace, shot a flame at it, and then flopped into one of the overstuffed armchairs. 

Harry stared at the fireplace in shock. Where there had once been dry wood, there was now a cheerfully crackling fire. Could magic really do all of that? He shook himself. “Were you really awake?”

“I usually am,” Remus said regretfully. “Would you like some breakfast? It’s a tad early, but we’ll get back on track eventually.”

“Um,” said Harry. “Sure. Do you want me to cook?”

“Are you worried I’ll poison you?”

“No! Of course not. It’s just that the Dursleys—”

“Thankfully for both of us, I’m not the Dursleys. As I recall, Petunia’s husband was rather unfortunate-looking.” 

“Right,” said Harry. Uncle Vernon was unfortunate-looking, it was true. A mustache somehow constantly full of crumbs combined with gin blossoms from a lifetime of moderate, white-collar alcoholism did no one any favors. Still, it was odd to hear someone say it out loud. 

“Any food allergies or sensitivities?” Remus asked. 

“Any what?” Harry wanted to know. 

“Allergies? Intolerances?”

“I don’t know,” Harry said honestly. His stomach hurt after eating sometimes, but it was hard to say why. It could be because he wasn’t getting enough to eat. It could be because, in truly desperate times, he snuck food out of the trash. Telling Remus that would probably just upset him. 

Remus studied him. “When was the last time you saw a doctor?”

Harry shrugged. “I got vaccinated before I started school, I think.” 

“Eye doctor? Dentist?”

“I got glasses when I started school too,” Harry said. “I don’t know if I’ve ever seen a dentist. Is it as bad as everyone says?”

“I can’t say I love Muggle dentists,” Remus said. “But it’s not terrible, no.” 

The light from the fire was throwing the scars on Remus’s face into sharp relief, so Harry wasn’t sure he believed him. Remus might not think the dentist was terrible compared to whatever had done that to him, but a normal person would probably disagree. “Hmm,” Harry said because it seemed like he ought to say something.

“Magical healing isn’t so bad,” Remus offered. “Although after enough of it you tend to build up a tolerance. We should get you looked at and vaccinated against magical illnesses. There’s a clinic off Diagon Alley that takes walk-ins. Is that alright?”

“Sure,” Harry said. Even if it was unpleasant, it would still be a new experience. 

“Perfect, let’s see. What else? I should make a list...breakfast first though. Here, sit down.”

Remus got up from his chair and pulled up a different chair at the kitchen table, gesturing for Harry to sit. Harry sat, watching as Remus bustled around the kitchen lighting candles and muttering to himself. It was odd to watch someone else prepare breakfast, and it made Harry feel vaguely guilty.

“Are you sure you don’t need help?” Harry finally asked.

Remus jumped back to avoid being splattered with bacon grease. “I’ve got it under control, I think. Now, if you’d like to make a list…”

“Sure,” said Harry, eager to be helpful. With a wave of his wand, Remus sent a scroll of parchment, a small dark bottle, and a feather in Harry’s direction. They settled gently on the table in front of him. Harry stared at them. “What am I supposed to do with these?”

“Right,” said Remus. “Item number one will be teaching you how to write with a quill. It takes some getting used to. In the meantime, I think there’s a pencil in the coffee cup over on that bookshelf over there.”

Harry went and found the coffee cup. It had a thin ring of gray mold in it like maybe Remus hadn’t washed it before turning it into a container for writing utensils. He grimaced, but grabbed a pencil and went back to the table.

_Teach Harry to write with a quill_ he wrote at the top of the parchment, followed by _Go to doctor?_

“What else are we doing?” Harry asked. 

“Have you still got your Hogwarts letter?”

Harry nodded. “Up in the attic.”

“Add school supply shopping to the list. And clothes shopping. New bedclothes. Do you need anything for furniture? Toys?”

“Um,” said Harry. 

“Don’t worry about it. We can decide when we get there.” Remus set a plot of bacon, toast, and eggs in front of Harry. “I’m afraid I don’t have any milk or orange juice at the moment. Is water alright? We can go grocery shopping too.”

“Water is fine,” Harry said around a mouthful of bacon. “Thank you.”

“Sure thing,” Remus said. 

Harry watched as he opened a leather-bound book in a language he didn’t recognize. Harry kept watching for the next half hour as Remus sipped his coffee, read his book, and ate his breakfast. It was fascinating. Excluding the Dursleys, McGonagall was the only other person he’d had breakfast with. He’d been too surprised and exhausted to really appreciate being able to eat without being screamed at. 

This was a novelty. He couldn’t wait to see what happened next.


	4. Gringotts

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Gringotts!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hello, i'm back, i've been working/maybe having a depressive episode which equals not writing so apologies for that. happy no more trump! this was supposed to be the entire trip to diagon alley but then i (once again) got distracted.

Harry hadn’t been sure what to expect from Diagon Alley. The fact that it was an alley didn’t seem to bode well, but Remus appeared unconcerned by the prospect. “Got your list?” he asked. “Got our to-do list?”

Harry waved both sheets of paper.

“Great,” said Remus. “Alright, ready to go?”

“Is this going to involve more Apparating?” Harry wanted to know.

“Believe it or not, it’s one of the better options. Flying takes much too long, and Flooing is a bit of an ordeal if you’re not used to it.”

The sun had come up while they were eating, and now they were standing in Remus’s shabby living room. “We can fly?” Harry asked. “And what’s Flooing?”

“Yes, but not without a broom. And Flooing involves traveling via a fireplace.”

“Like Santa Claus?”

“Not even remotely the way you’re thinking, but the legend is actually linked to wizardry. There’s quite an interesting history there—but you don’t want to hear about that now. Here, give me your arm.”

Harry reluctantly offered Remus his arm, and a moment and a bit of nausea later, he was standing in a dingy gray alley. He looked around. “Is this...um.”

Remus, who had been squinting at a rat digging through a toppled trash can, looked at him. “Is this—oh! No. This isn’t Diagon, this is just the Apparition point.”

“The what?” Harry asked. He was beginning to feel like a broken record, asking the same questions over and over.

“If you’re Apparating to get to Diagon, this is where you arrive. That way people aren’t just randomly appearing out of nowhere and causing collisions. It’s a bit like how Muggle airports organize flights taking off and landing.”

Harry, who had never actually been to an airport, simply nodded. He followed Remus out of the alley and onto a busy London street. They turned into an average-looking bar before he could get his bearings properly. It wasn’t far past seven in the morning, but there were people there anyway. He watched, fascinated despite himself, as the bartender cracked an egg into a glass of amber liquid. The bartender slid the drink to a man in violet robes, who drank the entire thing, egg and all. He wasn’t at all sad when Remus guided him out the back of the bar and into another alley of sorts. There were trash cans and a brick wall. It didn’t look like anything special.

“This isn’t Diagon either?” Harry guessed.

Remus drew his wand and tapped a sequence of bricks. “No, but this is.”

Harry felt his jaw drop. The scene before him was like something out of a fantasy novel. The light seemed brighter, the colors more intense. Crimson, emerald, indigo, gold—the air smelled like incense and spices. “It’s brilliant,” said Harry, glancing up at Remus. The man looked a little overwhelmed. “Are you alright?”

Remus shook himself, for all the good that did. “Yes, sorry, I’m fine. I haven’t been here since…”

“The war,” Harry hazarded.

“The war,” Remus agreed. “The last time I was here, Merlin, it must have been 1979? Your parents weren’t even in hiding yet. Antonin Dolohov hit me with a nasty Cutting Curse, I’d have bled to death if it wasn’t for your mother.”

“I’m sorry.”

Remus’s eyes focus on him. “You look just like your father,” he told Harry a little ruefully, “but you’ve got your mother’s eyes. She used to complain that strangers on the Knight Bus would tell her their entire life stories. James would tell her she had a trustworthy face. Still, no reason to burden you with the ghosts of a won war.”

Harry shrugged. He wondered if he should tell Remus that being talked to, even about near-death experiences and his dead parents, was such an oddity that he didn’t mind. Remus looked sad enough as it was though, so he didn’t mention it. “Are we going to the doctor first?”

“Healer,” Remus corrected absently. “We’ll go to Gringotts first. I’ll need to withdraw money. After that, yes. There’s always a line.”

He led Harry down the street, passed every sort of shop imaginable, and some that weren’t. Harry did his best to take everything in. There was a bookstore, an apothecary, a malletier, whatever that was, a pet supply store, a post office that towered above the rest of the buildings with owls swooping in and out of large open windows, and so much more. Finally, they arrived at a huge, gleaming, white marble building. Diagon Alley split into two different alleys on either side of it, but Harry wasn’t paying attention to them. He was looking at the two creatures in chain mail guarding the entrance to Gringotts Bank.

“Those are goblins,” Remus told him. “They’re the bankers of the wizarding world.”

Harry eyed the chain mail. “Bankers,” he repeated skeptically.

“You’ll learn about it in your History of Magic class, but yes. They used to live peacefully—well, as peacefully as sentient creatures ever do—farming various fungi underground and occasionally trading the minerals they found with humans. Humans, wizards specifically, got greedy though. They wanted gold and attempted to enslave the goblins to get it. There were wars, then rebellions, but eventually…”

“The wizards won.”

Remus glanced down at him. “Your textbooks will say it was a compromise, that the goblins have the _privilege_ of working for us.”

Harry frowned. He didn’t quite have the words to describe his opinion on that, but his feelings weren’t positive. “That’s not right,” he said. “What’s the point of having magic if you’re not using it to make everyone’s lives better? Why use it to—to control people?”

The goblins at the entrance had evidently been eavesdropping because the one on the left snorted, garnering a glare from the one on the right. “Your government thinks it has made our lives better,” the goblin on the left said bitterly. “We’re civilized now, aren’t we?”

“Shut up,” said the goblin on the right.

“And it doesn’t consider us people any more than it considers your friend there a person,” the goblin on the left continued, undeterred.

Harry looked between Remus and the goblins. “But...you’re all clearly people. That’s not fair.”

The goblin on the right cast his eyes toward the sky. “Spare us from the naive moralizing of magical human brats.”

“Don’t start with that,” the one on the left said. “Their children are their future, just as ours are. And if they’re sympathetic—”

“What? If they’re sympathetic they’ll let us keep standing here instead of killing us?”

“I’m sorry,” said Harry. “I didn’t mean…” he wasn’t actually sure what he didn’t mean, but he felt terrible about it.

“Oh, go inside,” said the one on the right.

“Come on, Harry,” Remus said, guiding him inside.

“I didn’t mean—” Harry began again, distressed.

“I know,” said Remus. “Don’t worry about it. The goblins are frustrated. They lost everything, and now the Ministry of Magic has them backed into a corner.”

“Like how I felt, knowing I’d be stuck with the Dursleys until I was eighteen or they threw me out,” Harry guessed.

“On a much longer, grander scale, yes. Now, there might be a bit of yelling, so brace yourself.”

Harry hated yelling. It rarely heralded anything good. Reluctantly, he trailed after Remus as he approached the nearest available teller.

“What,” grunted the goblin. It wasn’t a question and she didn’t look up from her book. Harry squinted, trying to get a look at the title, but it was in a language he didn’t recognize. Her nametag identified her as Alkit. 

Remus fished the thin gold chain he wore around his neck out from beneath his robes and offered it to her. On the end, in place of a pendant, was a heavy golden key. “Vault 711, please.”

The goblin’s eyes stopped moving across the page she was on and she blinked for a moment. “Vault 711?” she repeated.

“That’s the one,” Remus confirmed.

Alkit put what appeared to be a sprig of rosemary in her book as a marker, then set it aside. “Purpose of visit?” she asked, grabbing the key to examine.

Remus had to lean forward over the counter to allow for the motion. “General expenses,” he told her calmly. “Mostly school supplies for Harry J. Potter.” 

Harry watched, fascinated despite his trepidation at the prospect of an argument, as Alkit ran tests on the key. First, she waved a large, smokey crystal over it. The key and the crystal both glowed, soft and silvery in the brightly lit bank lobby. Then, she dripped several drops of a violet fluid from a vial onto the key. It steamed. She scratched at the key with one of her long, claw-like fingernails. This produced no discernable effect as far as Harry could tell, but Alkit nodded thoughtfully. “Let me summon your account manager, Lord Black?” she said the last bit like a question.

“Consort, sort of. Former, I guess. Just call me Remus,” Remus said.

It was hard to tell with the scarring on his cheeks, but Harry thought he might be turning red. “Remus,” Alkit repeated, still thoughtful. She spoke into what Harry had initially assumed was a charm bracelet around her wrist. “Ulnar, it’s Alkit. Patrons for you.”

“For me?” a tinny voice from the bracelet said. “Tell them I’m busy.”

“Vault 711,” Alkit said.

“What?” squawked Ulnar on the other side of the line, his voice so loud that both Alkit and Remus winced. “One of them?”

“A consort.”

“Well, that’s alright then, unless it’s that Lestrange bastard. I’ll be up momentarily. Is it the werewolf? He’s not a bad sort, that one.”

“Don’t be rude,” Alkit started to scold, but Remus just nodded when she looked at him apologetically. “It’s the werewolf,” she sighed.

They stood in silence, listening to shuffling and muttering coming from the bracelet. Harry caught something along the lines of, “—thrice-cursed pants,” which was apparently more than Alkit could take.

“Ulnar, you haven’t canceled the call,” she said. “We can still hear you.”

There was some crackling, then the noise stopped. Harry studied Alkit. She had a look on her face similar to the one the cashier at the local grocer wore whenever Mrs. Figg, the Dursleys’ elderly neighbor that had occasionally babysat Harry, attempted to pay for cat food with her credit card.

“I’m glad Ulnar hasn’t retired,” Remus said.

The look Alkit gave him clearly said that she didn’t share his opinion. “You’ve dealt with him before?”

“He showed up in the middle of the night when Walaburga Black died to inform me I was in charge of the Black assets,” Remus said. “It was a full moon, so I had no idea what he was saying at the time. Still, you have to admire a goblin that will lecture a fully transformed werewolf through the bars of a cage.”

“That sounds like Ulnar,” Alkit said grudgingly.

“He stuck around until I changed back, then took me out for breakfast. Told me if I knew what was good for me I’d mind my manners better than any of the—” Remus looked at Harry. “Well, it’s not worth repeating. Basically that I didn’t have the bloodline to backtalk him and get away with it. We’ve gotten on well since.”

“Remus!” someone bellowed before Alkit had to think of a response. “You old dog! How have you been!”

Harry didn’t know much about goblins, but the one approaching them appeared to be ancient. He had white, wiry hair sprouting from random locations and so many wrinkles it was difficult to distinguish where his face ended and his body began. He was much thinner than the door guards had been, and even slightly spindlier than Alkit.

“Ulnar!” said Remus, grasping the goblin’s arm in a weird sort of handshake. 

At last, Harry understood Remus’s warning to brace himself. The yelling wasn’t angry, but the old goblin was incredibly loud and potentially deaf if the volume Remus was using indicated anything. They followed the goblin through a maze of stone hallways before arrived in a small, dim office filled to the brim with papers and books.

“And who’s this?” Ulnar demanded after settling himself behind his desk, turning to examine Harry with milky brown eyes.

“Dorea’s grandson,” Remus said. “Harry Potter.”

“He looks like her,” the old goblin said. “Or I suppose, he looks like his father who looked like Dorea. Now Dorea, she was a fine lady. A bit of hellion in her youth, but I suppose all of the Blacks are. You’d know,” he told Remus cheerfully.

Harry blinked, then filed this fact away for later. He looked like his grandmother, whose maiden name had been Black before she married his grandfather. Remus evidently knew the Black family as well, if he’d been put in charge of their assets after Wal—whatever’s death.

Remus looked a bit uncomfortable. “Yes, well—”

“You know, I’ve always admired your balls, Remus, but this is something else. Paying for Harry Potter’s schooling with Sirius Black’s money? That’s the biggest ‘fuck you’ I’ve seen in ages. Good for you, kid. You want a notice sent to him in Azkaban? I can arrange that.”

“That’s really not—”

“Yes, I think I’ll do that. The Blacks always did have a flair for the dramatic. I think that’s very fitting.”

“I—okay,” Remus said, visibly giving up. “I doubt the guards will let it through anyway. Can we go to the vault now?”

Ulnar waved a finger in his face. “Not quite, not quite. Since I have you here, I have paperwork for you.”

Remus took a stack of papers from him with a defeated look on his face. “What’s all this?”

“Interest on the accounts that you need to either deposit or invest, I need you to sign off on repairs to some of the rental properties—which, by the way, I still think you’re crazy for not actually charging rent on—”

“I charge rent,” Remus protested.

“Right, a knut every month with no late fees,” the goblin said, rolling his eyes. “You could be charging five sickles for most of those properties, you know. Anyway, I figured you would want the repairs, so they’ve already been done. We can fudge the date of your signature a bit.”

“You’re the best, Ulnar.”

“And don’t you forget it,” Ulnar said sternly. “Do you want to make Harry the heir to the Black assets? Otherwise, it’s the Malfoy brat, if anything happens to you.”

“Do you want that?” Remus asked Harry.

“Will I have to do paperwork?” Harry wanted to know.

They both looked at Ulnar, who shrugged. “Not much.”

“Let’s do it,” Harry said. “Um, what are the Black assets?”

“Mostly money and more cursed furniture than anyone really needs,” Remus told him. “Some jewelry.”

“I don’t know if I want cursed furniture.”

“No one does,” Remus sighed. “Which is why I haven’t been able to get rid of it.”

“If you just left out the bit about it being cursed in the advertisements…” Ulnar grumbled, shuffling through a stack of yellowing paper. “No, no, spare me the ethics lecture, professor,” he said when it looked like Remus might protest.

“I don’t want to take your money,” Harry said before an argument could erupt.

“It’s not mine,” Remus assured him. “The Black family...Sirius is the last one left, with the name anyway. He was sentenced to life in prison after the war, but for some reason, he never changed the paperwork giving me control of the assets if they ever fell to him.

“Which they did when that old hag kicked it in ‘85,” offered Ulnar.

“Yes, thank you, Ulnar. At any rate, Draco Malfoy and his mother, Narcissa, who was Sirius’s first cousin are the last ones alive, undisowned, and unimprisoned with a close enough blood relation to have any claim, but even that’s tenuous since Draco isn’t a Black by name. I actually asked Narcissa, and Andromeda too—her sister, but disowned for marrying a Muggle-born man—if they wanted any heirlooms or anything.”

“Soft-hearted fool,” muttered Ulnar.

“They didn’t,” Remus continued. “Narcissa sent me a very politely worded refusal along with a request never to contact her about family matters again. Andromeda was less polite. The letter was cursed,” he held out his hand, showing Harry a stark white burn scare on his thumb.

“That’s awful,” Harry said, but Remus was already shaking his head.

“If Dudley were in prison and his wife contacted you twenty years from now, asking if you wanted any of your aunt’s dishes, how would you react?”

If they were the dishes with hand-painted violets Aunt Petunia had gotten as a wedding gift from her mother-in-law, Harry would likely throw them at Dudley’s hypothetical future wife’s head. “I see what you mean.”

“Neither of them are bad people,” Remus said. “Impossible situations rarely have good outcomes though.”

“Are you Dudley’s wife in this scenario?” Harry wanted to know.

Ulnar cackled, then slapped a hand over his mouth, looking apologetic. Remus grimaced. “Sirius and I were...friends. Sometimes more, sometimes less. After You-Know-Who disappeared, a mutual friend of ours cornered him and accused him of spying.”

“And was he?” Harry asked. He wasn’t sure whether he was feeling sad or numb. Remus was already the nicest adult Harry had ever met. He didn’t deserve to have suffered the way he had.

Remus shrugged. “He didn’t have a Dark Mark—that’s a magical tattoo that all of You-Know-Who’s followers have—but there was an explosion that killed twelve bystanders. Our mutual friend disappeared.”

“They found a finger,” Ulnar said.

“Which is not definitive proof that he’s dead,” Remus replied, voice sharpening. “Sorry. I just...it’s difficult. We didn’t part on good terms the last time I saw him, but Sirius was...it doesn’t matter. With his family, well. He was sentenced to Azkaban almost immediately.”

“You don’t think he’s guilty?” Harry guessed.

He watched Remus’s grip tighten on the quill he was holding, tearing into a form about a leaky roof. “It doesn’t make sense for Peter to have been the spy. He was a decent wizard, but nothing special. You-Know-Who, he liked to collect people. Tried to recruit your parents even, although I remember Lily telling him—something that I’m sure she wouldn’t want you to hear until you were older. Sirius was the kind of man he would have tried to collect, is my point. Handsome, charming, encyclopedic knowledge of curses and countercurses, one of the best duellers of the generation…”

Taking in the distant expression on Remus’s face, Harry said, “I think I’m tired of asking questions now.”

That prompted Remus to smile. “I apologize, Harry. I haven’t talked about Sirius in years. Now is no time to start. Here, this one needs your signature too.”

Obediently, Harry signed. It wasn’t legible. He didn’t understand what wizards had against pens. “Alright,” Ulnar clapped his hands together. “Griphook!” he bellowed.

A younger goblin, if wrinkles and hair were anything to go by, entered the office moments later. “Yes, Ulnar?” he asked.

“Take these two to Vault 711, please.”

“If you’ll follow me?” Griphook inquired, waiting patiently while Remus and Ulnar did the odd arm clasping thing again and slapped each other on the back with promises of lunch somewhere called Knockturn soon.

They followed Griphook back through the winding office corridors and finally into a cave lit by torches. “Cool,” Harry said, looking around.

“It gets better,” Griphook promised. He seemed expressive or at least used to mimicking human expressions. “Have you have been on a rollercoaster?”

“You have one here?”

Griphook tilted his head in the direction of a wooden cart on a mini train track of sorts. “Hop in.”

Harry glanced at Remus, who nodded. “I hope you don’t get motion sickness easily.”

The cart ride was exhilarating. They zoomed through tunnels, up and down hills, around curves, and through occasional stretches of darkness so complete Harry couldn’t see his hand in front of his face. He was grinning when the cart finally slowed to a stop in front of the huge steel door to vault 711.

“That was awesome!”

Remus opened one eye, then the other. Then, a little sheepishly, he released his grip on the metal bar that had gone across their laps. It had new dents in it from where he had been squeezing. “I’m charging you for that,” Griphook said.

“That’s fine. I’ll pay double if you slow down on the way up.”

“And disappoint the kid?” asked Griphook, shooting a conspiratorial wink at Harry. “Never.”

Remus opened the vault door then, distracting Harry from wondering if the carts could go faster or if he’d really seen a dragon while the tunnels blurred by. Vault 711 wasn’t so much a vault as it was a suite of connected rooms as large as the Dursleys’ house. The main room that they had walked into was full of shiny gold coins. In the next room was more coins, and in the distance, Harry could make out furniture, presumably of the cursed variety. 

“Alright,” said Remus. “Wizarding lesson one is currency. These bronze coins are knuts, spelled with a silent ‘k.’ They’re worth about five British pounds each. The silver ones are called sickles. There are twenty-nine knuts in a sickle. The gold coins are called galleons. There are seventeen sickles in a galleon. Does that make sense?”

“No?” said Harry.

“Wizards place far less value on logic and consistency than Muggles do,” Remus told him, sounding apologetic.

“Why twenty-nine? Why seventeen? How is anyone supposed to remember that?”

“I ask myself that every single day,” Griphook replied cheerfully. “It’ll stick in your head eventually.”

“Can we get two pouches linked to this vault?” Remus asked. “Charmed specifically to only allow money through. The last thing either of us needs is a fanged ottoman emerging in the middle of a shop.”

“Spending limits on either?”

“Does a sickle a month sound fair to you?” Remus asked Harry.

“Sure,” said Harry, trying and failing to do the math quickly in his head. Life would have been far simpler with nice, round numbers.

“A spending limit of one sickle a month on one of them,” Remus told Griphook. “Effective tomorrow.”

“Isn’t a sickle a lot?” Harry asked while Griphook puttered around muttering in a language he didn’t recognize, waving two leather drawstring bags in the air.

“I expect it’s what your parents would have allowed you,” Remus said. “Maybe more, if Lily couldn’t talk James out of it. She was always better with money than he was. They weren’t nearly as wealthy as the Blacks, but upper-middle class by anyone’s standards. We can stop by the Potter vault on the way back to the surface if you’d like.”

Harry thought about it. “Could we come back? I don’t know if…”

“That’s perfectly fine,” said Remus, who looked like he understood. “Today has already been a little overwhelming, and it’s only just started.”

“All done,” Griphook proclaimed and handed them each a bag. Harry’s had his name on it in black lettering, like a brand. “And I’ve taken the fee for damaging the cart.”

“Sorry about that.”

“Don’t be! If you could break one of the sides just as we get to the top, I might be able to talk Ulnar into a new one.”

“I’ll see what I can do,” Remus said drily, and then they were back in the cart and zipping toward the surface.


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Harry goes to the Healer and meets the Weasleys.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> more of the implied/referenced child abuse in this chapter, although none of it is detailed and it's all in the past. also harry gets vaccinated? i don't actually mention needles though if that's a squick of yours. (yeah, I know the HPV vaccine wasn't around until like 2006, but I've added an M for magic to the acronym so now it's the MHPV and they have it in Britain in the early 90s. welcome to my pro-vaccination agenda executed through fanfiction, I guess.)
> 
> also Liberties Were Taken with family trees and timelines in the first war, but hopefully everything will make sense

They went to the Healer next which, true to Remus’s word, already had a line out the door even before eight o’clock in the morning. They were in line behind a frazzled-looking woman and her children, all of whom had bright red hair. Remus frowned at her. “Molly?” he asked finally.

She turned, expression morphing from inquisitive to delighted. “Remus Lupin? Is that you? As I live and breathe, it is! Oh, it’s good to see you.”

To Harry’s surprise, and Remus’s as well if his startled expression was anything to go by, she threw her arms around the werewolf. He patted her awkwardly on the back. “It’s good to see you too. Harry, this is Molly Weasley. And…” he studied the collection of red-haired children after extracting himself from Molly’s grasp. 

She took pity on him. “Percy, Fred, George, Ron, and Ginny.”

“I’m Fred,” said one of the boys.

“You were Fred yesterday,” another one of them argued. They were, Harry realized, identical right down to the pattern of the freckles on their noses. “I want to be Fred today.”

“Bill and Charlie out of school already, then?” Remus asked, unperturbed. 

“Yes, yes, Charlie just graduated with his NEWTs this past spring. Up and ran off to Romania to study dragons of all things. They pay for his food and housing, so I suppose it’s not a bad deal until he gets eaten. And Bill has an apprenticeship at Gringotts this summer. He got a scholarship to the Magical Institue of Curse-Breaking in Cairo. Two years left on that. What about yours?” she nodded at Harry. “Ron’s age, isn’t he? I don’t remember you having a young lady, I suppose I always thought you and Sirius...well, it’s not important, is it? Things were rather confused back then.”

“Not mine,” Remus assured her hastily. “Well, sort of, now. Harry is Lily and James’s son.”

Molly clapped her hands, making Harry twitch. “I should have known by the eyes. I never had much to do with James, but Lily was a good girl. It’s nice to meet you, dear,” she added to Harry, who shyly shook her hand. 

“Nice to meet you too,” he said.

“Oh, don’t be shy,” said Molly. “We’re family, albeit distantly. Most purebloods are, after a fashion.”

Harry eyed the large family doubtfully. He’d been under the impression that his family consisted solely of the Dursleys. 

“Molly’s mother was Lucretia Black, and her husband’s mother was Cedrella Black,” Remus explained to him. “Your grandmother was Dorea Black, who would have been Lucretia’s...first cousin once removed? And Cedrella would have been the same, I think.”

Harry eyed Molly. “So, we’re…” he gave up on trying to do the math.

“Vaguely cousins of some sort,” Molly told him. “I wouldn’t worry about it overly much.”

“Wait,” said one of the boys Harry assumed were twins. Whether it was Fred or George, he wasn’t sure. “Your mum and dad’s mum were both Blacks?”

“The Black family tree looks more like a wreath,” Molly said comfortably. 

“Gross,” said the boy. 

“Phineas Nigellus Black, who was Hogwarts’ least popular headmaster, was my great-great-grandfather. He was also your father’s great grandfather. It’s not that close of a relation.”

“Especially not for the Blacks,” muttered Remus, which everyone politely ignored.

“What was he to me?” Harry asked, curious despite himself. 

“I believe he was your great-great-grandfather as well,” said Molly. “Dorea was your father’s mother, and she would have been Cygnus Sr.’s youngest daughter, and he was Phineas Nigellus’s third son—second, actually, since Phineas Jr. was disowned.”

Harry regretted asking. He hoped the Healer, when he finally saw them, had an aspirin. 

“Don’t worry about it,” Remus advised, apparently noticing some of Harry’s confusion. “With Lily being Muggle-born, none of it really matters to you. You could marry anyone you wanted without worrying about how closely related you are.”

“I don’t want to marry anyone,” Harry said. “I’m ten.” 

“Me neither,” said Remus cheerfully. “And I’m thirty-one.”

“A baby,” said Molly. “Why, when I was your age—”

“And how long ago was that?” one of the twins asked.

“Yeah, mum. How long?” said the other. 

“Never have children,” Molly sighed, looking at Remus. “You’re fine, of course, Harry. You seem very polite.”

“Thanks,” said Harry a little uncertainly.

“I’m legally not allowed to have ‘em,” Remus told her. “So, no worries there.”

“Why not?” the youngest of the boys, who Harry thought was named Ron, asked.

“Too awesome,” Remus answered promptly before Molly could scold him for asking a rude question. “The Ministry doesn’t want any more of me running around.”

“Cool,” said maybe-Ron. He turned to Harry. “Got any chocolate frog cards?”

Harry confessed that he did not, in fact, have any chocolate frog cards. Nor did he know what a chocolate frog was. The twins, Ron, and Ginny appeared scandalized by this revelation, but they were quick to set about remedying it. Harry could hear Remus explaining the situation with his relatives to Molly, but he was too distracted by the fact that the portraits on the chocolate frog cards _moved_ to even be embarrassed. 

Ron took the pink hair tye off of his tattered pack of cards, deftly holding it out of Ginny’s reach when she frowned. “Hey, that’s mine!” she said, leaping for it. 

“Here,” he said, ignoring her. “I’ve got some duplicates you can have.”

Soon, Harry found himself attempting to describe Muggle candy to the fascinated Weasley children. Even Percy, who was older, seemed interested. “I’ve never had much of it,” Harry told them apologetically. “None of it’s alive, and it doesn’t make you float, I don’t think. I’d have noticed that.”

Fred or George waved off his apology. “We don’t get candy much either,” whichever of the twins it was assured him. “Expensive, ‘cept for chocolate frogs. And the card’s the best part about them.”

“Chocolate’s a bit chalky,” the other twin agreed.

“The frog is chalky?” Harry asked. 

“I know!” said the first twin. “The least they could do is make it properly slimy. I wonder…”

The twins turned away from the group, their heads together and their voices low. 

“Ignore them,” said Ron. “They’re just going to get grounded again.”

“Like the time with the spider,” Ginny piped up.

“We don’t talk about the spider.”

“Or the acid pops,” she continued, undeterred.

“Melted a hole in my tongue,” Ron told Harry, who was appropriately horrified at the idea. 

“Is it still—”

Ron stuck out his whole, unblemished tongue. “Nope! Mum’s great with healing spells. Hasn’t got her license—her parents kicked her out when she married Dad and then they had Bill, so she couldn’t afford it, she says—but she can fix almost anything.”

“Your tongue is just a muscle,” Molly said absently. “And I didn’t do that well on it. Haven’t you noticed that you can’t taste anything sour?”

“I can’t?” asked Ron. “But I like lemons.”

“That’s why,” Molly told him patiently.

“Huh,” said Ron. “Neat.”

“You can like, eat a lemon?” Harry asked, impressed.

Ron nodded enthusiastically. “They’re good!”

“He eats them like apples,” Ginny said, disgusted. “Peel and all.”

“The peel too?” Harry wanted to know, cringing a bit and hoping she was exaggerating.

Ron nodded again, this time a little sheepishly. “It’s kind of bitter, but I like the texture.”

“He’s a changeling,” said Ginny. “We’re not actually related.”

Harry’s eyes darted between their identical red hair, pale, freckled skin, and square jaw. Their noses and eyebrows were even the same. “His eyes are a bit of a different color?” he offered. 

“Exactly,” said Ginny triumphantly. 

“If anyone is a changeling it’s Percy,” Ron muttered, not softly enough to avoid attracting the older boy’s attention.

“Hey!” said Percy, offended. 

“What are you doing going to the clinic, if your Mum is so good at healing?” Harry asked a little desperately. The Weasleys seemed nice enough, if incredibly chaotic, but he’d still like to avoid an argument.

Ron made a face. “Shots. I need a few for Hogwarts and Percy’s getting a dragon pox booster and Ginny’s getting one—what it? Something for girls.”

“It’s not just for girls,” said Molly, who Harry was starting to suspect was omniscient because there’s no way she could have been having an animated discussion about keeping gnomes out of the vegetable garden with Remus while also keeping track of five children without some sort of superpower. “It’s the MHPV vaccine, and you’ve all gotten it.”

“I have?” said Ron. “I haven’t got a cervix though. Do I?”

“A what?” said Harry. 

It turned out to be another question he regretted asking. He was staring mistrustfully at Molly by the time she was done with her explanation. 

“That seems complicated?” he said. “Girls really all have that sort of stuff going on? Muggles and witches both?”

“Most of them,” Remus said. 

Harry shuddered. 

He’s saved from learning anything new, at least about anatomy, because the Weasley family is finally ushered inside by a tired-looking man in Muggle scrubs. 

“See you at Hogwarts!” Ron calls over his shoulder.

Harry waves until he’s out of sight. “They seem nice,” he ventures to Remus.

“Oh, the Weasleys are phenomenal people. Molly and Arthur were already out of school by the time I was there, but they were part of—well. We fought on the same side of the war, we’ll say that. Don’t let Molly fool you with the matronly act. She’s one of the best duelists I know.”

“Is it weird that they’re related?” Harry asked, unable to keep it to himself. “Sorry. I just. That’s weird to Muggles, isn’t it?”

Remus shrugged. “To Muggles, maybe. To purebloods, that’s people with four magical grandparents, although a lot of the older families don’t hold with a definition that loose, it would be weirder to marry a Muggle than it would be to marry their first cousin.”

“I’m not a pureblood then, because of my mum?”

“Nope, you’re a halfblood, same as me. Not that it should matter after fighting a whole war about it, but here we are.”

“Oh,” said Harry. 

The same exhausted man herded them into the clinic. Harry looked around with interest, then slumped a little. It looked like a regular waiting room, down to the odd geometric pattern on the red and green furniture to the carpet, which might have once been blue but was now the same color as the dust on the street outside. 

“What’ll it be?” the woman at the front desk asked, eyeing Harry. 

“Shots?” he asked, unsure whether she was talking to him or Remus.

“Merlin, I wish,” she muttered. “Have you been here before? No? Fill out these forms.”

“More paperwork?” Harry asked a little sadly as she handed him a stack of papers and shooed him away. 

“This ought to be the end of it,” Remus said. “Let’s see. I ought to be able to fill out James’s side of your medical history, at least, and Lily was healthy as far as I know. Her parents died while she was in Hogwarts, but I don’t know what they died of. I don’t think they were murdered.”

“That’s good?” 

“Sorry,” said Remus. “I forget you’re not used to this world yet. There’s—a lot of recent history, and most of it is painful.”

Harry resolved then and there to stop accidentally bringing it up, as much as he could stop doing something by accident. “What about my dad’s parents?” he asked.

“Murdered,” Remus told him, sounding apologetic. So much for not bringing it up. “1978, I think? Fleamont—James’s father’s father, had just died of dragon pox, so Charlus inherited the title, which made the conservatives in the Wizengamot rather nervous given his political ideology. I think he made it two months after that, then Dorea was killed in the Bones raid.”

“Like Amelia Bones?” Harry asked, attempting to process that information. 

“Her brother, sister-in-law, and parents were all killed too. She was working late, which is what saved her life. It’s just her and her niece now.”

“Her niece lived?” That was good, Harry thought. A bright spot in an otherwise dreadful story. 

Remus grimaced. Perhaps not, thought Harry. “Her mother, Amelia’s sister-in-law, killed the last of the Death Eaters on the raid before the girl was hurt, but died of her injuries before the Aurors arrived.”

“That’s awful,” said Harry, already imagining the nightmares he was going to have. He was starting to suspect that Remus didn’t have a firm grasp on what was appropriate for children. Harry was ten, of course, which was plenty old enough to check out a complicated herpetology textbook from the library, thank you very much, and _no he wasn’t going to use it as a stepping stool, Miss Fletcher, he actually wanted to read it,_ but the violent murders of his grandparents and their friends were a bit much. 

“Anyway,” said Remus. “Do you smoke? Have more than two alcoholic drinks a day?”

“No,” said Harry. “Is that really a question on there?”

“Afraid so. Here, take this up to the front desk? Tell the lady there you don’t know everything, but you’ve filled out what you could.”

“Sure.” Harry did as Remus bid, then returned to his seat. They sat there. And sat there. And sat there. Finally, the Weasleys emerged. Harry waved at them again, and they waved back, but then his name was called and he went up to meet the Healer at the door. 

“I’m Healer Jenkins. Would you like your guardian to come back with you?” she asked. 

Harry looked at Remus. “Do you want to?”

“If you’re comfortable with it.”

The only thing Harry was actually comfortable with was ducking slaps and being ordered around, but he shrugged. “Sure.”

Healer Jenkins led them back to a dingy exam room, where she waved her wand over Harry and muttered a lot of complicated words. “Is that English?” he asked doubtfully. 

“Most spells are a truly bastardized attempt at Latin, although a lot of medical spells are Greek instead,” Remus explained. “She’s checking your bone density right now.”

“It’s a little low,” Healer Jenkins said disapprovingly as if that were his fault. 

“Why?” Harry asked. 

She pricked his finger and then muttered more over the drop of blood she extracted. “Malnutrition.”

“Really?” Harry wanted to know. “You can tell all that just like that?”

“I’m more concerned about why you’re malnourished, not why I can tell,” Healer Jenkins said, eyeing Remus with even more disapproval. “The Bat’s Wing further down on Knockturn does a free lunch program for kids if you can keep yourself out of the drink.”

“I’m not—he’s not—” Remus said.

“He took me in yesterday,” Harry told the Healer, feeling oddly protective of Remus, who had been nothing but kind to him so far and didn’t deserve to be interrogated by a woman who looked like she knew how to wield a scalpel. “And my aunt and uncle could afford food, they just didn’t want to feed me.” 

“Well, your last two meals have been alright,” Healer Jenkins said consideringly. “A little low on vegetables, but otherwise not bad. Would you like to report your aunt and uncle to the authorities?”

“They’re Muggles,” said Remus. 

“Ah,” she rolled her eyes. “So, the Ministry would be even more useless than usual.”

“Does the Ministry not do anything with Muggles?” Harry asked. 

“Usually they would memory-charm them and place you with a magical family,” Remus told him. 

“But since you’re already here, they wouldn’t do anything,” Healer Jenkins finished. “Make sure he has a lot of dairy, citrus, and protein, and I’m going to give you a dose of Skele-Gro to take home. Let’s see what else is going on here.”

She mumbled some more words, and various patches of Harry’s body began to glow. “A week-long course of Skele-Gro,” the Healer amended. “The Muggles hit you?”

“Not often?”

“Even once is too often.”

“Can you look at his eyes and teeth too?” Remus asked. “He doesn’t know when he was last seen for either in the Muggle world, and I know his father had terrible eyesight even at that age.”

“Parents dead?” asked Healer Jenkins bluntly. 

“In the war,” Remus confirmed. “His mother was Muggle-born, so I don’t know much about her medical history.”

Healer Jenkins pointed her wand at Harry and said something that made his eyes water. “Awful,” she said, presumably about his eyesight and not his mother. “I can write you a prescription for new glasses, but you’ll have to get it done by a specialist. We can’t do this here.”

“James was like that too,” Remus said. “Drove his mother crazy running around trying to find a shop she could wave enough gold at to go to the trouble.”

Healer Jenkins cracked a bit of a smile for the first time since Harry had seen her, and it only looked like it hurt her a little. “Luckily, he’s not quite at that point. Gamp’s Glasses ought to be able to do it for you today.”

“We’ll add it to our list,” Remus promised. “Anything else?” 

“Feed him,” said Healer Jenkins. “Other than that, just the Skele-Gro and the vaccinations. He needs...let’s see...all of them?”

Harry grimaced apologetically, wondering if he was being an inconvenience. That didn’t stop him from asking, “what’s that one Ron was talking about? Can I get that too?”

“You want more shots?” Healer Jenkins asked like she couldn’t quite believe her ears. 

“The MHPV shot,” Remus said. To Healer Jenkins, he added, “you would too if you’d heard Molly Weasley’s lecture on cervical cancer, STIs, and safe sex in line today.”

“Love that woman,” said Healer Jenkins. “She's in here every other week with those twins of hers. We ought to get her to do an advertising campaign one of these days. Yeah, kid. We can give you the MHPV shot too.”

The shots weren’t nearly as bad as Harry had been expecting, and Healer Jenkins lets him have a chocolate frog afterward. The twins were right; the chocolate was terrible. It was still one of the best things he had ever tasted, and he got a card with Gilderoy Lockhart on it too.

“Hmm,” said Remus, tone dire as they exited the clinic. “Knew him in school.”

Harry decided not to ask.


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> at last! the end of the trip to diagon alley that was only supposed to be one chapter. thank you for all of your kind comments on the previous chapter!

Harry spent the entire time Remus talked to the man behind the counter at Gamp’s Glasses contemplating the weird-looking shapes zooming around on the bandages on his arm rather than paying attention to the adults’ conversation. Quidditch balls, Remus had called them. Quaffles, Bludgers, and Snitches. More nonsense words, but at least these looked interesting. 

The man wasn’t as interesting as Healer Jenkins, Molly, Ulnar, or Alkit had been, so Harry didn’t feel bad ignoring him. Mostly he looked long-suffering, particularly when Remus produced the slip of paper Healer Jenkins had given him. 

“These will be expensive, you know.”

“That’s not a problem,” said Remus.

Harry was impressed by the way he smiled politely as the man doubtfully examined the patches in Remus’s robes and Harry’s own rather scruffy appearance. Uncle Vernon would have been apoplectic by now.

The man sighed audibly. “We might already have properly treated lenses in the back, let me look.”

“It will be worth your while if you find them,” Remus said, and he put one of the silver coins on the counter. 

“Is this how bribes work?” Harry asked, genuinely curious. He’d never seen anything like that happen outside of one of the crime dramas Aunt Petunia watched when Uncle Vernon was at work. 

The man turned scarlet at that and hurried back to the storeroom. 

“Money talks,” Remus told him, whatever that meant. 

Harry was fairly confident that magical money didn’t talk, but perhaps it was like speaking with snakes. Maybe only some people could do it. Snakes were much more interesting than the odd currency system wizards used, so Harry felt that he’d gotten the better end of that particular deal. 

The man returned quickly. “We do have the glass in stock if the boy would like to pick out a pair of frames.”

Harry was allowed through a small gate and into the larger room beyond the counter, which was filled with shelf after shelf of different frames for glasses. He looked back at Remus, unsure what he was supposed to do. 

“Pick out your favorite,” Remus told him encouragingly. 

Harry looked around more, discounting everything brightly colored or jewel-encrusted. He didn’t really like his current glasses—the frames were thick, black, and maybe of plastic in a way that made it clear they had been the cheapest option Aunt Petunia could find—but he didn’t really want to stand out. While he was fairly confident Remus didn’t care how long they spent here, he didn’t trust the man at the front counter not to get impatient. Harry grabbed the first pair he saw with round frames. They were made out of something gray and metallic, and Harry was pleased with them. 

The man at the counter took the frames away into the storeroom, gesturing for them to take a seat. Well, he gestured for Harry to take a seat. Remus had already done so, propping his feet on a glass coffee table laden with magazines in a way that dared anyone to make a comment. Harry tried to do the same, but his legs weren’t long enough.

Remus noticed and grinned a bit. “You know, your father was one of the shortest boys in our year until our fifth year, then suddenly he was even taller than I was?”

Harry wasn’t sure he believed that. Remus was very tall, taller even than Piers Polkiss’s father, who had been taller than Principal Wells at his old primary school. “Really?” he asked.

“Really. Although, I think your mother outweighed him until after graduation. He was...Merlin, what was the word he used? Willowy. That was it. I’ve never seen him more offended than the time he stole Lily’s spot by the Common Room fire, and she picked him up bridal style, then dumped him in Sirius’s lap. Ah, here we go. Try your new glasses on.”

The man had returned and, looking only the slightest bit grudging, handed Harry his new glasses. Harry swapped them with his old ones, then stared. “Is this what normal people see like all the time?” he demanded. “I mean, look,” he pointed outside. “I can see the leaves on that tree. Can you do that?”

Remus nodded. “That’s how the world is supposed to look.”

“There’s a lot of it,” Harry said mistrustfully. 

“That’ll be five Sickles.”

Remus handed over the money, and they left the shop. Harry was delighted all over again. They were on Knockturn Alley right now, which was like Diagon Alley but a little grimier. With his new glasses, it was like an entirely new world. Window displays full of crystal vials, bones, shining stones, and books glittered in the distance as far as he could see, which was much farther than it had been five minutes ago. It was fantastic.

A side effect of being able to see, however, was that he watched the blood drain from a woman’s face when she caught sight of Remus before she hurriedly crossed the street. 

“What was that about?” Harry wanted to know.

“She’s a hag,” Remus said, which was rather rude of him, Harry thought. “No, not like that. Like an actual hag, the species. She can probably smell that I’m a werewolf. We haven’t got the best reputation.” 

“Oh,” said Harry. “Are there a lot of different species of people?”

“Lots. They’re a bit of a specialty of mine, seeing as I am one. I’ve got books at home if you’re interested.”

“Sure,” said Harry. “Can we buy other books too?”

“About snakes?”

“Yeah. Other stuff too though. Maybe Quidditch.”

“Yes, we can. However, I think we ought to get your luggage first. A charmed book bag will make our lives much easier.”

Harry trailed after him back onto Diagon Alley, where Remus seemed to know his way around. There were a few times where he stopped, staring at an empty storefront and frowning, but not many. Harry soon found himself with a bookbag charmed to hold extra items, a trunk with several different compartments in it, a potions kit that included far more animal parts than Harry thought wise for making something someone might ingest, new school robes, new casual robes, new Muggle clothes, a telescope, quills, parchment, and inks of various colors. He managed to talk Remus out of completely new bedroom furniture, but he did end up with a comfortable chair, new sheets, and a new quilt with a leaf pattern on it that actually moved like there was a breeze. 

“I can charm the bag to be better once we’re home,” Remus assured him, perhaps eyeing the way the sides bulged. “No use paying for something I can do for free, at any rate. Do you want an owl?”

“Snakes don’t like them,” Harry said, which explained everything as far as he was concerned. 

“Hogwarts will have some you can borrow if need be, so that’s fine. A cat? A toad?”

Harry thought about it. “The letter said just those three, didn’t it?”

“No snakes,” Remus confirmed, hearing the question behind the question, although he sounded sorry about it. “Depending on which house you’re in, that’s probably for the best. Some of the dorms and Common Rooms are cold.”

“That’s fine,” Harry decided. “I don’t want a cat or a toad either though. I don’t know anything about taking care of them, and I wouldn't be able to ask.”

“Let me know if you change your mind,” Remus said. He didn’t appear relieved or bothered by Harry’s decision, so Harry decided he meant it. “Ready to get your wand?”

Harry was more than ready to get his wand. Remus guided him down Diagon Alley to a faded, dusty-looking shop called Ollivander’s. “Is this it?” Harry asked sounding more doubtful than he meant to.

“Makers of fine wands since 382 B.C.,” Remus confirmed. “It’s the reason London is here, you know.”

“Really?”

“Really. The Romans founded Londonium in 47 A.D. They picked here because there was already a small settlement, mostly made up of magic users. And the river was convenient, too. The Romans always did like their rivers. Come on. Don’t let old Ollivander frighten you, either. He has a touch of the Sight and an excellent memory, which make for an unnerving combination.”

Harry hadn’t been nervous before, but he was now. “The Sight?”

“It’s what makes him such an excellent wandmaker.”

They entered the shop, which had enough dust in it that Harry was more than willing to believe it had been here since the Romans were. At first, he thought it was empty save for thousands upon thousands of thin boxes stuffed onto the shelves, but then something moved behind the front counter.

Upon closer inspection, that something was an incredibly elderly man wearing robes the same color as the dust and faded wood around him. “Remus Lupin,” said the man. “Ten and a quarter inches, cypress with a unicorn hair core. Interesting wood, cypress. Bloody history. Suitable for one of Selene’s children.”

With that unsettling pronouncement, he turned to Harry. “And who do we have here? Young Mr. Potter, already? It seems just yesterday that your parents were here buying their wands. Come here, come here. Let me take your measurements.”

The man, who had to be Ollivander, didn’t actually take his measurements. A tape measure did that all by itself, while Remus watched in amusement. Harry tried to hold very still while it measured the length of his pinkie finger and then his ear. While the tape measure did its work, Ollivander lined up several boxes on the counter.

“Here we go,” he said. “Try one of these.”

Harry picked the first one up and dropped it immediately when it shocked him. 

“Not hornbeam then, hmm?” Ollivander said. “Go on, keep going.”

Harry reached cautiously for the next wand, but he needn’t have worried. It scooted away before he could grab it. “Sorry?”

“Not to worry, Mr. Potter. Keep trying.”

The next wand Harry tried blew the windows out of the shop. “Sorry,” Harry repeated, more confident in his need to apologize this time. 

“Not to worry!” Ollivander said again and repaired the windows with a wave of his wand. He looked a little frazzled though. 

Harry set the ledger on fire, made a dust tornado, and had seven more wands that simply refused to do anything at all.

“Wait here,” Ollivander told him. “Don’t touch anything.”

“Is he mad?” Harry wanted to know once the elderly wandmaker was out of sight. 

“Ollivander? No. He’s delighted,” said Remus.

“How can you tell?”

Remus shrugged. 

Ollivander returned with another slim, dark box. “This!” he said triumphantly. “I thought I’d never sell this one. Give it a wave.”

Harry took the wand like it was an extremely temperamental, venomous snake. It shot gold sparks from its tip when he waved it, and nothing combusted or imploded. “Oh, good,” said Harry, relieved not to have caused any more property damage.

“Interesting,” said Ollivander.

“Interesting?” Remus prompted.

“Holly and phoenix feather, eleven inches. Nothing to worry about, perfectly fine wand,” said Ollivander unconvincingly. 

"Right." Remus handed over more gold coins than they had spent on anything all day, then they left the dusty old shop and the odd man behind. They walked in silence, but only for a moment. Remus had said not to let Ollivander unnerve him; Harry would attempt not to be unnerved. 

“Can we go to the bookstore now?”

“Of course,” Remus told him. “I always save the best for last. Right over here, it’s called Flourish and Blotts. Got your list of textbooks?”

Harry affirmed that he did, and then Remus turned him loose in what was essentially paradise with more spending money than he’d ever had in his life. The shelves in the bookstore continued up, and up, and up until he couldn’t make out the details even with his new glasses. Rickety wooden scaffolding and ladders zipped up, down, and sideways. It was wicked. Ollivander’s strange reaction was soon gone from his mind.

He was a bit sad that the first year textbooks were all conveniently located on a clearly marked lower shelf because it meant less exploring, but when he had gathered them all and brought them to Remus where he was chatting with two people in Muggle clothes, he waved him off. “Take as long as you’d like. Buy what you’d like. We’ll get ice cream and then groceries afterward.”

“Your son?” asked one of Remus’s new friends. She was a tall Black woman with a kind, easy smile.

“My ward,” Remus corrected. “His parents were friends of mine in school.”

“Were…?” the woman trailed off. “The war Minerva was talking about?”

“I’m afraid so,” said Remus. “Harry, this is Helen Granger and her husband, Sal.”

Sal was a head shorter than Helen, olive-skinned, unsmiling, and nervous. His eyes were firmly fixed on the books zipping by overhead though, not on Remus. Harry wasn’t sure, but he thought they might both be Muggles given their discomfort and clothing. 

“It’s nice to meet you, Harry,” said Helen, offering her hand to shake. “Are you going to be a first year?”

Harry obediently shook. “Yes, ma’am.”

“Such manners!” said Helen, elbowing Sal. 

The shorter man jumped slightly. “Nice to meet you,” he echoed faintly.

“Sal isn’t quite used to magic yet,” Helen explained.

“And you are?” he grumbled.

“Our daughter, Hermione, is going to be a first year this fall too,” Helen said. “She’s around here somewhere. She turned eleven back in September, so Minerva came to explain things to us. It was a bit of a shock.”

“I imagine so,” Remus told her. “My mother was a Muggle—that is, she didn’t have magic. Even after years married to my father, there was always something new that surprised her.”

“Remus adopted me…” Harry paused to think, “yesterday? I think? I didn’t know about magic before then.”

“Yesterday?” Helen repeated, clearly unsure that she had heard correctly. 

“It was a bit of a shock,” Remus said drily. “For both of us. Go on, Harry. Pick out a few more books, at least.”

Harry left him trying to explain the situation in a way that made sense and offering his contact information to Sal and Helen. He marched up to the closest salesperson and asked for directions to the section on magical creatures, which kept him plenty busy. He didn’t meet Hermione, but he did watch a girl who looked around his age approach Sal and Helen with a stack of books half her height. Judging by the fond expression on Sal’s face as he sighed, this was Hermione. He made an attempt to memorize what she looked like so he would remember her at Hogwarts, then went back to scanning book titles. 

He had seven books so far and had moved on from magical snakes to fantasy novels. He wasn’t having much luck, which was fair, he supposed. If magic was real, what was the point in writing stories about it? He settled on a comic book, mostly out of spite. Not even Dudley had been allowed to read comic books. 

He returned to Remus before the man grew bored without someone to talk to. Not that there was much of a risk of that, Harry realized as he approached. Remus was flipping through his history textbook with apparent interest. 

“Ready to check out?” Remus asked. “What all have you got? I’ve got a copy of _Fantastic Beasts_ at home, although the one you have there is an anniversary edition with a different forward, so that’s alright. The one you’ve got about the Indian subcontinent ought to be interesting. I might have to borrow that when you’re done. You sure you don’t want another few books in that comic series? No? That’s alright, we can always come back if you change your mind.”

Remus paid for the books along with another bag since Harry’s own seemed to be holding together by sheer force of will, then bought Harry the largest ice cream sundae he’d ever had. Even grocery shopping wasn’t so bad, particularly because Remus was ready and willing to buy anything and everything Harry had never heard of just so he could try it. Harry wasn’t sure he understood the magical world’s fascination with animated food, but he was curious to try it. He was hoping for something less lifelike than the chocolate frogs.

Harry curled up in his new bedroom in his new chair, wearing new clothes and reading new books. It had been a decidedly strange day, he decided, but not a bad one. Even the Skele-Gro, which had been gross to drink and made his bones tingle in a way bones probably shouldn’t, wasn’t terrible.


	7. Sirius's Interlude

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sirius receives Ulnar's letter.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> grammarly says the tone of this chapter is sad and disapproving, so make of that what you will. also, if you are interested and so I stop forgetting and having to redo the math, I've decided that a sickle in 1991 is worth 150 USD in 2020. this is based on the fact that, if every wizard only usually buys one wand, seven galleons would have to be quite a bit in order for Ollivander to make a living/buying a wand would be more akin to buying a house or a car. there is no pressure to remember this. i have already forgotten three times

Far from Remus Lupin’s comfortable cottage, on the least hospitable island in the North Sea, someone banged on the bars of Sirius Black’s cell. 

“Shut up!” someone shouted from down the hall. If Sirius had the energy, he would guess it was one of the Lestrange brothers. They’d been odd before Azkaban; ten years surrounded by Dementors hadn’t improved them any.

“Mail for you, Black,” said the Auror making all of the noise. 

Sirius rolled over onto his side so he could see the man, but didn’t get up. “I don’t get mail.”

“Well, someone sent you something. Hurry up. It’s bloody freezing down here.”

“Is it,” said Sirius, dragging himself into a sitting position with a great deal of difficulty. “I hadn’t noticed.”

The Auror banged on the bars. “I don’t like your attitude.”

“I don’t like your face,” Sirius retorted and, moving faster than the Auror had been expecting, snatched the letter away and scuttled back into the corner, out of range of any kicks. If the Auror wanted to curse him, so be it. 

His cousin Bellatrix, in the cell across from him, cackled. “Poor baby Higgs,” she cooed. “Was big, bad Sirius mean to you? Come to Bella, she’ll kiss it better.”

Higgs, if that was his name, left quickly after that. Bellatrix kept better track of the human guards than anyone else, if only because it unnerved them when she called them by name. “Gringotts,” Sirius said aloud, frowning at the letter. 

“Family business?” Bellatrix asked with more interest than she normally showed in anything, save perhaps Christmas when even high-security prisoners like themselves were permitted to eat an orange slice. 

“Dunno,” said Sirius. He hoped Remus hadn’t died, although he wasn’t sure they would contact him if he had. He opened the letter. “It’s from Ulnar,” he told Bellatrix, but she wasn’t listening anymore, eyes wide and blank as she stared into space. A moment later, Sirius felt it too. 

A creeping cold, deeper than the physical chill constantly pervading the frigid island, was inching down the hallway. He tucked the letter half under his thin, dirty mattress, where he would see it even if he forgot about it when the Dementor on its way was done lurking. He turned into Padfoot and wedged himself as far into the corner of his cell as he could manage. 

Tail over his nose, he closed his eyes as the worst memories the Dementor could dredge up ricocheted around his mind.  
_  
“Lily and James, Sirius, how could you?”_

_“—blood traitor—”_

_“You’re no son of mine.”_

_“He was your friend—”_

_“How could you?”  
_  
“Crucio.”  
_  
“Traitor.”_

_“Traitor!”_

_“—worthless—”_

_“How could you?”  
_  
Slowly, the cold faded. In the cell opposite his, Bellatrix was sitting with her knees tucked under her chin, rocking slightly while she hummed an old Celestina Warbeck hit. Sirius stretched, his joints creaking in a way that made him suspect he’d lost quite a bit of time, then turned human again.

Something had happened before the Dementor had come, he thought. A meal, maybe? He was hungry, but that didn’t mean there hadn’t been a meal. He was so hungry all the time. Shivering must burn calories, he thought. It was a smooth, well-worn thought. That meant he’d had it before. It fit comfortably between the ache in his chest and the gooseflesh raised on his arms. 

Calories. It was important to eat after Quidditch practice because of calories, at least according to Lily. She was smart and right about most things, Lily was. 

Lily, collapsed in Harry’s nursery like a marionette whose strings had been cut, eyes open and clouded green, but the wrong green. Green like the light of the Killing Curse, the last thing she’d seen, not green like the emeralds in the Slytherin hourglass. Lily was dead, and James was dead, and it was all Sirius’s fault. 

Something had happened. Lily and James had died, but something had happened after that. The rat, the real traitor, although wasn’t that Sirius? If Sirius had been braver, Peter wouldn’t have been given the secret. Maybe Sirius would be dead now, but Lily and James would still be alive, and wasn’t that what mattered?

Sirius slumped onto his bed, but he sprang back up when something poked him. A letter from Gringotts had been slipped halfway beneath his mattress. Who would do that? How long had it been there?

It was from Ulnar, the elderly goblin that managed the Black family’s accounts. A decent sort, Ulnar. He hadn’t taken any nonsense from Sirius’s mother. Merlin, Sirius hated his mother. Maybe she had died, and that’s what the letter was about? Except, Sirius frowned, hadn’t she already died? That had been the last letter he’d received, informing him about her death. Hadn’t it?

If his mother had died, he would have been happy about it. The Dementors wouldn’t have let him keep a thought like that. If she hadn’t died, then no one would have mentioned her, and Sirius wouldn’t be sure anyway. He hoped she was dead. Very slowly, he opened the letter.  
_  
To Sirius Orion Black,_

_This is Ulnar Stonecutter, writing to inform you that an amount totaling fifteen Galleons, six Sickles, and eleven Knuts was removed from Vault 711 by Remus John Lupin to pay for the expenses incurred in outfitting one Harry James Potter for his first year of education at the Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry._

_An additional seventy Galleons were transferred directly to the general Hogwarts account in order to cover Mr. Potter’s tuition over the next seven years._

_Know that, if not for the delicate position my species occupies in the magical world, I would have done far worse by now, you treacherous, murderous bastard._

_Thank you for choosing Gringotts! We appreciate your business.  
Ulnar Stonecutter  
Senior Account Manager  
_  
Sirius laughed until he started coughing, then coughed until he threw up a bit of bile. Then, he looked thoughtfully at the bars of his cell. Could he…? He smiled for what might have been the first time in ten years, but it wasn’t a nice smile. It wasn’t a happy one. The Dementors couldn’t take this from him. 

Harry, his godson, Lily and James’s son, was going to Hogwarts. 

If Peter was alive, Harry wouldn’t be safe if Moony wasn’t around to keep an eye on him. If Sirius finally committed the murder he had been imprisoned for, Harry would be safe. Sirius hadn’t stopped Peter in time to save Lily and James. He wouldn’t make the same mistake with Harry.

A dog once more, with one eye carefully fixed on Bellatrix, Sirius slipped between the bars of his cell. He had to wrench his shoulder a little to do it, but he was out. Bellatrix kept humming, eyes vacant. Sirius huffed to himself, then began to limp for the exit.


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this is mostly just a transitional chapter because I'm really excited for the next one. the cake recipe is a) real and b) my favorite. I've adapted it to fit the fact that I'm lazy and lactose intolerant (I mean, there's still A Lot of butter, but anyway), but the original can be found [here](https://www.cookingclassy.com/chocolate-cake-chocolate-buttercream-frosting/).

Harry’s birthday, of course, was the day after the night of the full moon. Remus clearly felt guilty about the fact when he wasn’t locked in his bedroom with a migraine or alternating between icing and heating every joint in his body as if that would make them feel less like they were about to violently shift from one species to another within the span of thirty seconds. Despite frequent assurances that he really didn’t expect anything and that just not having to sleep in a cupboard anymore was a great birthday gift, Harry found him, gray-faced, in the kitchen on July 30th. 

“It’s really alright,” Harry said, watching anxiously as Remus paused between cracking eggs for a cake, clutching the ugly Formica countertop in an effort to stop the world from spinning. “I’ve never had a cake before, so it’s not like I’ll miss it.”

“You have had a cake,” Remus told him through gritted teeth. “For your first birthday. I was there. You smeared most of it on your face instead of eating it, but there was a cake.”

Sometimes Harry forgot that Remus had known him as a baby. “Okay,” Harry said. “Are you sure you don’t want to sit down? I can make it myself.”

“The whole point of a birthday cake is that someone else makes it for you.”

“I thought the whole point was that there was cake.”

“That too. I’m just going to sit down for a second.”

Harry watched Remus stumble toward his armchair, wondering if he should help him. He made it alright though, collapsing into the chair with a sigh. He was asleep several moments later. Harry eyed him cautiously for another minute, but Remus’s breathing had evened out, no longer pained or ragged. Confident that he was thoroughly out, he turned to the cake recipe. It looked like it had been typed out on a typewriter, but there were a couple of handwritten notes.  
_  
Grandma Violet’s Best Ever Chocolate Cake (with annotations, so James doesn’t put motor oil in anyone else’s birthday cake.)_

_**That was once, Lily! And the recipe said grease! What was I supposed to do?**_

_To future users of this recipe (James) ask if you’re not sure about an ingredient._

_Sincerely,  
Lily Potter_

_Ingredients_

  * 1 ½ cups granulated sugar
  * ½ cup light brown sugar, firmly packed
  * ¾ cup unsweetened cocoa powder
  * Cinnamon or cayenne to taste
  * 1 tsp baking soda
  * ¾ tsp salt
  * 1 cup boiling water
  * ¾ cup canola oil
  * ¼ cup unsalted butter, melted (can use salted, leave out the salt if you do)
  * 2 eggs, large
  * 3 egg yolks, large
  * 1 TB vanilla extract
  * 2 cups all-purpose flour
  * ½ cup Greek yogurt
  * ⅓ cup soy milk 



_Instructions_

  * Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Grease (that means Muggle cooking spray, James!) two 9-inch round or 9 by 9 square cake pans. 
  * In a large, heat-proof mixing bowl, whisk together granulated sugar, brown sugar, cocoa powder, cinnamon or cayenne, baking soda, and salt. Carefully pour boiling water into the cocoa mixture and immediately whisk to blend. Allow the mixture to cool for 5 minutes.
  * Using an electric hand mixer set on low speed, blend in the canola oil and melted butter until combined. Add eggs, egg yolks, and vanilla extract. Mix until just to combined. Then add flour and blend until combined. Finish by blending in the milk and Greek yogurt until just combined.
  * Divide the mixture evenly between the two prepared pans. Bake in the preheated oven until a toothpick inserted into the center of the cake comes out clean or with a few moist crumbs, usually between 29 and 34 minutes. Allow to cool in pan 5 minutes, then run a butter knife around the edge of the cake. Flip the pan over onto a plate until it detaches, then allow it to cool completely.
  * Add frosting (I use the regular canned kind from the Muggle grocers) to the top of one cake, then top with the second cake. Frost the top and sides of the cake. Store in an airtight container (if there are any leftovers!)



__

Harry stared at the handwritten argument. This had been a recipe they both liked? Minus the motor oil, probably. He snuck another look at Remus, feeling grateful all over again that the man had decided to take him in. 

The past few days had been decidedly odd. Remus did all of the cooking, which didn’t amount to much when Uncle Vernon and Dudley weren’t involved. He had taught Harry several cleaning charms—one for dishes, one for the bathroom, and one for laundry—but he didn’t make Harry use them if he didn’t want to. Harry apparently wasn’t supposed to be doing magic outside of school anyway, so that was alright. The spells only worked for him about a quarter of the time, which Remus said was normal.

They went for walks in the woods, with Remus pointing out different species of plants and fungi. When it was sunny in the afternoon, he would help Remus in the garden. Well, help was a strong word for what Harry did. He watched as Remus coaxed fussy magical plants into bloom. and he chased the occasional gnome away from the potatoes. 

Remus fed the gnomes, Harry had seen him do it, so he wasn’t sure what compelled them to dig up the vegetables. Remus had shrugged when he asked, declared that “gnomes are bastards, Harry, they don’t need a reason,” and went back to wrestling with something called a Snargaluff that Harry wasn’t to antagonize. 

Mostly, Harry read and explored the woods. He’d found a shed snakeskin from a common European adder, but had yet to locate its former owner. That was fine; he had the rest of the summer to convince the elusive snake population he was worth talking to. Remus had also dug up books about Quidditch that he said had belonged to Sirius, which made him look sad until Harry asked him to teach him chess. He’d noticed that Remus had a board and, when pressed, the man admitted that it was a popular wizarding pastime. 

Harry was an atrocious chess player, but it was nice to sit by the fire and listen to the wireless while his chess pieces complained about every direction he gave them. 

He found where Remus had left off on the recipe before sitting down, then followed the remaining directions. Cooking wasn’t so bad when he knew he’d be able to enjoy the fruits of his labor afterward rather than being locked in a cupboard while his family enjoyed dinner. 

Harry sat down with a well-loved copy of _Quidditch Through the Ages_ once the cakes were in the oven, and he made it through nearly the entire chapter about the Golden Snitch—the bird, not the ball—before the timer went off and woke Remus.

The man peered around blearily, attempting to get his bearings, but Harry was faster and had the cakes out before he’d even managed to haul himself to his feet. He frowned. “You didn’t have to do this, Harry,” he said. “You should have woken me up.”

Harry didn’t say anything, but he did glance at the counter, which Remus was using to support himself, back up to his face.

Remus sighed. “Well, perhaps you’re right. I should have made it yesterday when I was feeling better. It smells excellent, at any rate.”

“I like to bake,” Harry offered, deciding that Remus wasn’t going to yell at him. He hadn’t yet, but Harry was going to give a while before he stopped expecting it. 

“Soothing, isn’t it?” said Remus, breaking a crumb off the corner of one of the cakes to munch on. “Hot,” he added, fanning his mouth, “but excellent. What do you think of macaroni and cheese for dinner?”

“With cut-up hot dogs and ketchup?” Harry asked hopefully. He had fond memories of the meal, having eaten it nearly every time Mrs. Figg babysat him. Hanging out with cats and resting securely in the knowledge that he could outrun her if it came to it, his forays to Mrs. Figg’s house were the only thing he would miss about Privet Drive. 

Remus stared at him, processing the request. “You are your mother’s son. Yes, with ketchup and cut-up hot dogs. Then I’ll put the wards up around the house and lock myself in the storm cellar. I won’t be able to get out of the cellar until I’m human again, but just in case, I’ll set them so you’ll have to let me in tomorrow anyway. Don’t leave the house until at least noon tomorrow, okay? I should be back by then, but it’s alright if I’m not. I’m tired afterward, so I might just sleep the day away down there.”

“Alright,” Harry promised. 

“And save me a piece of cake?”

“Maybe.”

Remus ruffled his hair. “Good enough for me.”


	9. Birthday Part One

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> happy holidays to everyone celebrating! personally, i have eaten a ton of cookies, and that's probably only a minor exaggeration

Harry was having a cup of tea the next morning when he heard scratching at the door. Tea was a generous word for what he was drinking given the actual ratio of milk to sugar to tea, and scratching was a generous term for what he was hearing. It was more like something with paws had thrown itself half-heartedly at the door. “Remus?” he called cautiously. 

It was early still, just past eight. The moon was down and the sun was up, which meant Remus ought to be human-shaped again. Given how sick he had been the day before, Harry had expected him to sleep most of the day. He peered out the window nearest the door, just to be on the safe side. Not a werewolf in sight. There was, however, an incredibly grimy looking dog. Werewolves and grimy looking dogs were different, according to the book Harry had skimmed on the subject.

It had been an informative book. Remus’s caustic annotations and been even more interesting. At any rate, Harry had seen a diagram of a werewolf, complete with added bunny ears in red ink, and the dog on Remus’s porch wasn’t one. Mostly, it was just half-starved. Having been there himself a time or two, he opened the door and let it in.

If Harry could have heard what the dog was thinking, he would have learned a variety of new words and also about the existence of Animagi. As it was, he remained blissfully unaware of the stream of curses running through the dog’s mind. The dog, which was really the recently escaped Sirius Black, had been counting on the cottage being empty and forgotten. Just one more old safe house gathering dust during a time of peace, somewhere he could lie low for a while. He had not been counting on running into his as-of-this-morning eleven-year-old godson clad in flannel pajamas and drinking lukewarm sugared milk with a dash of tea. 

“Do you like bacon?” Harry asked. “I think dogs are supposed to like bacon. Aunt Marge’s did, but they weren’t very good dogs.”

Sirius scratched a flea and stared at him, attempting to think through the fog in his brain. He had escaped from an inescapable prison, survived a lengthy swim across the North Sea, and staggered across more of England than he’d ever wanted to walk, fueled only by the occasional scrap of food out of the trash and a desire for revenge. He had wanted to flop onto a couch, or maybe a real bed if there was one to be had, and sleep for two days straight. He had wanted to drink an entire bottle of fire whiskey. In his wilder flights of fancy, he had even thought about shaving. 

Bacon wasn’t an unwelcome addition to his morning, and neither was seeing his godson alive and well. However, when news of his escape finally broke, Harry would be the first person the authorities would check on. They would think Sirius had come to kill him, and he’d be lucky to escape the Kiss. 

Harry fed him a slice of bacon, which was very good. Crispy on the edges, but still a little chewy in the middle. Just how Sirius liked it. 

“Maybe Remus would let me keep you,” Harry said thoughtfully. “I couldn’t take you to Hogwarts, but that’s okay. I think he’ll be lonely when I leave for school, so you could stay with him.”

If Sirius was in a shape that had hands, he would have very gently placed his head in them. He laid down and put his paws on his nose instead, which was the next best thing. Remus was here. Why wouldn’t he be? Why wouldn’t the only person who knew about Sirius’s Animagus form outside of Peter, who was supposed to be dead and couldn’t exactly bring it up, be where Sirius was? Nothing had gone right in the first thirty years of Sirius’s life, he shouldn’t have expected things to change when he broke out of Azkaban. 

Harry eyed him with concern, wondering if bacon was secretly toxic to dogs who didn’t hate him. “Did the grease upset your belly? You look hungry, but I don’t know what else to feed you. Eggs? I could do scrambled eggs.”

Sirius uncovered his eyes enough to look at Harry and sigh deeply, so Harry made him eggs, chatting to him while he did. 

“Remus and I made a cake yesterday, but it’s chocolate so you can’t have any. I’m excited to try it, but I’m going to wait until Remus is back.”

“I’m not sure I get the point of Quidditch. Why is the Snitch worth so many points? Aren’t Bludgers dangerous?”

“Tomorrow I’m going to find a snake and convince it to talk to me. I know the ones around here are suspicious because they don’t know about people—well, they know about Remus and he’s never bothered them, but he smells different to them because of the whole werewolf thing—but I think they’ll like me when they get to know me.”

“Do you think _Scourgify_ works on dogs? Remus said it was all-purpose, but I don’t know if that includes dogs. You’re really muddy, is all. No offense.”

“I think I want to be a herpetologist when I grow up, but I don’t know if wizards have those. Newt Scamander studied all sorts of things and I read his book, but no one seems to like snakes much.”

“Can wizards learn Gobbledegook?”

Harry put the eggs on a plate, then put the plate on the floor and had oatmeal with more brown sugar than oats in it as his own breakfast, along with the rest of the bacon.

He had just started to wash up when there was a sharp cracking noise from outside. Sirius leaped to his feet, growling. Between the initial noise and the growling dog, Harry was so startled that he dropped the plate he’d been scrubbing. It broke into three pieces, but someone started hammering on the door, so there wasn’t much he could do about it. He let the dog into Remus’s room since it seemed panicked by the commotion, and had just shut the door behind it when someone attempted to break-in.

Attempted was the keyword, because whatever wards Remus had put up the night before flared red and resulted in a lot of swearing. Harry peered out the window, then rushed to the door and opened it. 

“Are you okay, Professor?”

McGonagall hardly looked at him, still glaring at the doorframe and rubbing her hand. Amelia Bones was trying very hard not to smirk several paces behind her, but she sobered quickly when she spotted Harry. “That’s what we should be asking you, Mr. Potter. How are you?”

“Fine?” Harry asked. “Um. Why?”

The two women exchanged glances. “Well,” said McGonagall, clearly thinking as she spoke. “It’s not every day you turn eleven, is it?”

“You’re here for my birthday?” Harry asked skeptically.

“Yes,” said Amelia unblinkingly and unconvincingly. “Where’s Remus?”

Harry pointed at the storm cellar. “Last night was the full moon. He’s probably still asleep.”

“He’s been sick the past few days, then?” Amelia asked.

“Oh, please,” muttered McGonagall. “Remus would never help that rotten—”

“He has,” said Harry. “He fell asleep trying to make a cake for me yesterday.”

Both of the witches’ faces softened. “He made a cake?” McGonagall prompted. 

“Chocolate,” Harry confirmed. “A recipe from my mum.”

“I think I know the one you’re talking about. It’s got pepper in it, doesn’t it? Lily always did have some odd ideas about food,” said McGonagall. “Do you mind if we come in?”

Harry shrugged. “Sure. Do you want tea and cake? We have to save some for Remus though.”

“Of course,” Amelia said.

They trailed after him into the house. “Have you seen the news recently?” McGonagall wanted to know as he put the kettle on to boil.

Harry was only eleven, but he already knew that question meant someone high up in the government had done something particularly scandalous, or something horrible had happened. It was probably the latter this time around because the kind of scandalous things politicians did in their spare time weren’t the sort of things one’s future Transfiguration professor teleported to the middle of the forest to talk about with an eleven-year-old. 

“No,” said Harry. “Remus says the Daily Prophet isn’t worth the paper it’s printed on, so he listens to the wireless most mornings. It’s kind of boring when there aren’t stories on, so I didn’t put it on this morning.”

“What do you know about Sirius Black?” Amelia asked. 

Harry blinked at the apparent non-sequiter. “He’s in prison for life, Remus said. He killed twelve people. And maybe spied for You-Know-Who, but he didn’t have the Dark Mark. I don’t know much,” he added apologetically. “Remus gets sad whenever he talks about him.”

“He didn’t have the Mark?” McGonagall sounded surprised. She turned to Amelia. “Did you know that?”

Amelia shook her head. “I suppose if anyone would know, it would be Remus,” she said. “There was never a trial. I was close with Delia Parkins, and she was one of the first on the scene that day. Said it would haunt her for the rest of her life, him standing there laughing. He looked right at her and said it was all his fault, then kept laughing.”

“Parkins…” McGonagall said thoughtfully. Harry set a slice of cake and a fork in front of her. 

“Killed trying to apprehend Dolohov three days later,” said Amelia. 

“That’s where I know the name from,” McGonagall said. “Class of what, ‘73?”

Amelia nodded, then took a bite of her own piece of cake. Before she could say anything else, Harry interrupted. “Um, sorry. What about Sirius Black though? You don’t have to pretend you’re here for my birthday.” 

“He escaped two or three days ago,” Amelia told him bluntly. “And we’re worried he might come after you or Remus.”

“Why?”

“He and Remus were...close while they were in Hogwarts, and after too, during the war. And you lived, that night You-Know-Who murdered your parents. He might try to finish his master’s work,” Amelia explained. 

“I was a baby,” Harry said.

“He’s likely not thinking rationally,” McGonagall told him. “Azkaban is a terrible place. After ten years...it’s best not to contemplate it. The cake is excellent, by the way.”

Harry glanced down at his own untouched piece and took a bite. It was very good. “What does it mean, that Sirius escaped?”

“It means that I have to run before the Minister has a public breakdown,” said Amelia, standing. “McGonagall is going to stay with you until Remus is up and about, okay? She’s a frighteningly good duelist when it comes down to it, so there’s no reason to be afraid.”

Harry wasn’t afraid, but once she said that, he started wondering if he should be.

“I taught Black everything he knows about Transfiguration, but I didn’t teach him everything _I_ know,” McGonagall told him. “I’ll turn him into a salamander if he tries anything.”

“I will pretend I did not hear that,” Amelia said, “as non-consensual human transfiguration is illegal, even on escaped felons. Thank you for the cake, Harry, and happy birthday!”

She turned on the spot and disappeared, leaving Harry blinking at McGonagall. 

"Can you really turn people into salamanders?


	10. Birthday Part Two

“Yes,” McGonagall confirmed. “I can really turn people into salamanders. Poppy—she’s Hogwarts’ on-staff healer—and I actually co-authored a paper on observable changes in digestive enzymes during cross-class vertebrate transformations last summer.”

That was cool, judging by the three-quarters of the words Harry understood, but it wasn’t what he had in mind. “Can you turn me into a salamander? Or no, a snake. No! A gecko.”

McGonagall eyed him. “Why a gecko, exactly?”

“Read about them in a physics textbook,” Harry said promptly. “Van der Waals forces and everything.”

“You want to see if you can walk on the ceiling.”

“Yeah,” said Harry. That was pretty obvious. “For science.”

“For science,” McGonagall echoed.

Harry nodded earnestly. “It’ll be educational.”

“Talk to me again when you’re of age,” McGonagall sighed. “Human-animal transfigurations can sometimes interfere with your brain and body’s development, and I’d rather not have to explain to Remus why you started growing scales instead of hair or licking your eyeballs.”

Fair enough, Harry supposed. That did sound like it would be embarrassing. “I don’t think I would lick my eyes,” he felt obligated to point out. “Geckos do that because they don’t have eyelids.”

McGonagall tilted her head back to study the ceiling. Harry was familiar with this sort of adult body language; it meant she was asking God what she’d done to deserve her current circumstances.

“Want to play chess?” Harry asked, rather than letting her continue that line of thought. “Remus has been teaching me. I’m terrible.”

“I’m sure you’re not that bad,” McGonagall said diplomatically. 

Oh, but Harry was. At least Remus had given up on using the magical chess set. The unenchanted pieces didn’t shout at him when she beat him in four moves three times in a row, or the next time when she beat him in six moves because Harry had decided to hell with strategy; he was just going to move pieces at random. 

McGonagall rubbed her forehead and looked at the board. “Your parents were terrible at chess,” she told him. “James never had the patience, and Lily thought it was elitist and snobby.”

“It’s just a lot to keep track of,” Harry said. “There are too many pieces, and they all move differently. Games are supposed to be fun, not confusing.”

“In that case,” said McGonagall. “How do you feel about checkers?”

Harry approved of checkers. He suspected McGonagall was letting him win, but he didn’t mind. The morning flew by without a single escaped murderer bursting in to threaten him, which was apparently now something he had to worry about. McGonagall made dainty little cucumber and cream cheese sandwiches with the crusts cut off for lunch and taught him how to count cards after that.

She was in the middle of explaining how to avoid getting caught counting cards when playing poker when Remus stumbled inside.

He looked horrible, with big dark circles under his eyes, a bruise on one cheekbone, and scratches all over his arms. He frowned at the scene before him. “Are you teaching him to cheat at cards, Minerva?”

“It’s not cheating,” McGonagall said virtuously. “Just a bit rude, if someone notices.”

“She’s teaching me how not to get noticed,” Harry added. “And when I grow up, she says she’ll turn me into a gecko if I want.”

“Okay,” said Remus. “I will probably have thoughts on that, but I’m going to need coffee first.” 

Remus made coffee. He drank a cup. Then another. He had a bit of cake with his third cup and was starting to look lucid. He stared at McGonagall like he was seeing her for the first time. “Why are you here?”

“It’s Harry’s birthday,” said McGonagall. “Also, Sirius Black escaped from Azkaban.”

“Happy birthday,” he told Harry absently. “And Minerva, I could have sworn you just said Sirius escaped from Azkaban. I’m going to chalk that up to me maybe having a concussion.”

“No, I’m afraid you heard that correctly. Are you concussed? Let me look.”

Remus did not have a concussion according to whatever spell McGonagall used on him, which meant she didn’t stop him when he made his next cup of coffee Irish. 

“Azkaban is inescapable,” Remus said. “No one escapes. No one has ever escaped. Are the Dementors on strike or something?”

McGonagall shrugged. “He always was bright, and he’s had ten years to figure it out.”

“He’s had ten years to become half-starved and addled. Not exactly conducive to breaking out of a maximum-security prison.”

McGonagall offered him a palms-up gesture. 

“Great,” said Remus. “Actually, I need a minute.”

Harry and McGonagall watched as he made his way carefully down the hall and into the tiny bathroom at the back of the cottage. The lock on the door clicked audibly. 

“Is he…” Harry trailed off, unsure what, exactly, Remus was or wasn’t at the moment.

“He’ll be fine,” McGonagall said. “He’s just had a bit of a shock, is all.”

Remus emerged from the bathroom half an hour later, eyes slightly red-rimmed and face damp from where he’d splashed it with cold water. 

“Are you feeling better?” McGonagall wanted to know.

“No,” said Remus. 

“Too bad. Walk me through the defenses and wards you have up.”

There were, evidently, quite a few defenses set up on, in, and around the cottage. All of the basic ones that had been applied to every Order safehouse, whatever that meant, plus some that Remus had added himself. 

“What’s the one that bit me when I tried to open the door this morning?” McGonagall asked.

“One of Lily’s pet projects,” said Remus. 

“That girl had a vicious streak a mile wide,” said McGonagall, and rubbed her hand again. “What’s it react to?”

“Emotions. It’s clever, really. I think she came up with it originally to keep Snape out of whatever illicit Potions lab they had set up before fifth year when he was feeling particularly self-destructive. If you’re not calm, you can’t get in. I set it up in case I ever got out of the storm cellar while not quite myself.”

“I was not calm this morning,” said McGonagall. “Does Sirius know that one?”

“Not that I’m aware of. You remember what he was like. If there weren’t moving parts, he wasn’t interested.”

“The motorbike makes a lot more sense when you put it like that.”

Remus shuddered. “Don’t talk to me about that motorbike. It flies,” he added in response to Harry’s confused expression. “He ran over Rabastan Lestrange once, while I was on it with him. I don’t even really like broomsticks. A Muggle contraption with shoddy amateur enchantments? Forget it.”

“It sounds fun,” Harry offered.

“He liked the Gringotts cart ride,” Remus told McGonagall, like that explained everything. 

It was McGonagall’s turn to shudder. “At any rate,” she said. “In my professional opinion, Harry is as safe as he’s going to get. Sirius would be hard-pressed to get in unless you opened the door for him, and that’s what I’ll tell Amelia.”

“Merlin,” said Remus. “Poor Amelia. She’s not going to sleep for the next week.”

McGonagall waved a hand. “No, this is good news for her. She’s been trying to bully Fudge into prison reform for years. Now, she might get it.”

“Well, I wish her luck. If anyone could figure out what else to do with the Dementors, it would be her.”

“Stay safe, Remus,” McGonagall said. “And happy birthday again, Harry. I should go check to make sure the house elves are feeding Susan while Amelia’s gone.”

Before Harry could say thank you or goodbye, she disappeared with a crack. Harry looked at Remus. Remus looked at him. The dog in Remus’s bedroom chose that moment to start scratching at the door.

“Do I want to know,” Remus said. It wasn’t a question.

Harry got up, let the dog out, and turned in time to see the blood drain from Remus’s already pale face.

“Sorry!” he said. “He looked hungry. I fed him some bacon and eggs, and then he got scared when McGonagall and Amelia got here, so I let him hide in your bedroom. We could take him to a shelter if you don’t want to keep him? He just seemed really sad.”

“Harry,” said Remus. “That’s Sirius Black.”

Harry looked at the dog. “It’s a dog.”

“Yes,” said Remus. “Sirius, give me one good reason I shouldn’t drag you back to Azkaban myself.”

The dog looked, if Harry had to assign an emotion to its narrow canine face, a bit constipated. Then, it turned into an equally grimy man. 

“Please, hear me out,” rasped the man who was just a dog who was apparently Sirius Black. “I didn’t come here looking for Harry; I just wanted somewhere safe to rest. And I’m not after either of you!” he added hastily.

“And the people you murdered? You weren’t after them either, I’m sure.”

At some point, Remus had drawn his wand and leveled it at Sirius’s heart. He looked like he meant business.

“I wasn’t! I mean, I didn’t kill those Muggles. Peter did. Remus, Peter was the Secret Keeper. You have to believe me. I would never betray Lily and James; James was like a brother to me. I made them switch, they wanted to use me, but I said no, it was too obvious, Remus, it’s my fault they’re dead, but I didn’t betray them.”

“Swear it,” said Remus tightly. “On your magic, your mother’s grave, I don’t care. Swear you didn’t kill those people. Swear you weren’t the Secret Keeper.”

“My mother is dead?” Sirius asked, brightening. “I thought so, but the Dementors, they must have taken that. I couldn’t remember.”

Remus raised his wand, the threat clear in every line of his body.

“Fine!” said Sirus. “I’m swearing, I’m swearing. In Merlin’s name, on my magic, on my honor as a Black, I didn’t kill those Muggles, and I wasn’t Lily and James’s Secret Keeper.”

Nothing happened. Remus didn’t look satisfied. “Top cabinet above the coffee pot,” he said. “There’s a small vial of Veritiserum. Drink it.”

“I was trained in Occlumency,” Sirius pointed out. 

“And then you spent ten years in Azkaban,” said Remus. “I don’t imagine your thoughts are terribly organized.”

Sirius had to stretch the reach the cabinet Remus had indicated, and his ribs were even easier to see when he did so. Harry watched all of this with interest. He should probably be afraid, but it was hard to reconcile the image of a stray dog with a mass murderer, and besides. Remus looked like he was perfectly capable of protecting both Harry and himself. 

Harry had never seen the frightening side of Remus before. Now that he had, he knew what to look for in the future. Sirius pulled the cork out of a small glass bottle and drank it.

“State your name,” said Remus.

“Sirius Orion Black.”

“What’s your Animagus form?”

“A big black dog.”

“How much did you pay Rosemerta to smuggle fire whiskey to the castle when Gryffindor won the Quidditch cup our sixth year?”

“Four galleons.”

“Really? That much?”

“Yes.”

“Were you Lily and James’s Secret Keeper?”

“No.”

“Who was?”

“Peter Pettigrew.”

“Why?”

“Voldemort didn’t care about him. Me, he wanted to kill or recruit. Peter was nobody.”

“Did you kill those Muggles?”

“No.”

“Did Peter?”

“Yes.”

“Why did you break out of Azkaban?”

“To kill Peter. Harry is going to Hogwarts, which means he’ll be vulnerable if Peter decides to attack him. I can’t let that happen.”

“Antidote is under the sink in a purple vial,” said Remus. “I believe you. If you lay a hand on Harry, though, I’ll turn you into a rug.”

“I won’t hurt him,” said Sirius, and then he took the antidote. 

Harry watched the two men stare at each other. Neither of them seemed sure what to do, and neither of them looked happy. “Do you want cake?” he asked hesitantly. “Or can you even have chocolate? Since you’re a dog sometimes?”


	11. Chapter 11

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> so like, a bunch of you commented on the last chapter and now you're all the best. sorry, but i don't make the rules. today i made peanut butter blossom cookies if you've seen those, but with a chocolate base. on the one hand, they were very good. on the other, they look like poop emojis. make of that what you will.

Living with one’s godfather, who was sometimes a dog and also an escaped felon but probably not a mass murderer, if he was to be believed, was rather like living without the man in question had been only now there was more dog hair involved, Harry mused. He nodded once to himself. Yes, that’s exactly how it was. Not bad, necessarily, just odd. Wildly illegal, of course, but the adults that had come into his life of late seemed to follow laws very selectively, so he supposed that didn’t matter.

Sirius spent most of his time as a dog. He would stay human-shaped long enough for Remus to force an impressive array of potions down his throat—Harry was starting to feel as if he’d gotten off easy, only having to take a bit of Skele-Gro—have some breakfast, and then nap on the porch as a dog. When the sun shifted and his spot became shadowed, he moved inside to doze by the fire Remus kept going even though it was August and sweltering.

Remus didn’t seem concerned. He’d tried to have a conversation with Harry about things like trauma and recovery and healing, but Harry had neatly avoided it. He had sat through plenty of lectures and interrogations from school counselors and, on one memorable instance that had really infuriated Uncle Vernon, someone from the Department of Education who specialized in child protection.

Life wasn’t fair, and bad things happened. Harry had spent a decent amount of time philosophizing about why and had yet to come up with a satisfactory answer. The Church said God had given humans free will so that they could choose to love Him and each other of their own accord. Harry thought church was boring and that the dress shoes he was forced to wear whenever the Dursleys dragged him along pinched. Snakes, whose sense of morality was flexible enough to allow for cannibalism, were even less helpful than church was when it came to figuring out why people acted the way they did.

At any rate, Remus was going to have to work harder than that if he wanted Harry to admit to having feelings. Sirius was clearly sad and sick. If he wanted to cope with that by napping as a dog, Harry wouldn’t stop him or worry about it. There were more exciting things to do.

He crept closer to the adder sunning itself on the bank of a small stream. His efforts to befriend the local snakes had been hindered by their unwillingness to hear him out, though Harry wasn’t terribly offended. If an animal he’d never spoken before came up to him and introduced itself while he was napping, snacking, or traveling, he wouldn’t be very enthusiastic either. It didn’t help that adders were, as a species, far less outgoing than grass snakes.

_Hello?_ he called. _Please, don’t go!_

The adder he had been stalking for the better part of forty-five minutes paused. _You again?_ it asked.

_Me again,_ Harry confirmed. _I just want to talk._

_There’s nothing to talk about,_ said the snake. _I know where a nest of voles is, but I’m not going to tell you. And this is my sunning rock. I won’t move, and you can’t make me._

_That’s okay,_ said Harry. _I’m not hungry right now, and I’m warm enough._

The snake eyed him. _Are you sure? You look like you could eat a lot of voles if you put your mind to it._

_Probably,_ Harry agreed. _I had waffles and sausage for breakfast though, and half a banana._

_Disgusting,_ declared the snake. _Voles are much better._

_I’m sure they are_ Harry told it diplomatically.

The snake let out a wordless noise of disdain but apparently decided he was harmless enough. _Fine,_ it said. _You can sun yourself here too if you really must. Not on this rock, though. This one is mine._

Harry scooted closer, settling on one of the smooth gray river rocks near the snake. The snake’s rock was, he noted, the nicest in the area. His own was a bit lopsided. Still, it would do. They sat quietly, basking in the humid summer air. Harry wasn’t sure about the snake, but he enjoyed the lush greenery and the sound of the water trickling over the stones. Silver flashed in the stream’s shallows as minnows darted around after insect larvae. Tiny brown worm-looking creatures waved in the current, half-burrowed in the mud and opening and closing what was probably their mouths. It was very peaceful. Well. Unless you were an insect larva, Harry guessed. They probably weren’t having a very good time right now.

_How come you can talk?_ the snake asked, breaking the silence. _Can all humans do that?_

_I’m the only one I’ve met,_ Harry said. _And I don’t know. Something with genetics, probably._

The snake considered this. _Fair enough,_ it decided. _You can talk to me again if you’d like. I spend a lot of time on this rock. I’ve warmed up now, so I’m going to go have a vole. Don’t follow me. The voles are mine._

_I won’t,_ Harry promised. _Good luck with your hunt._

The snake flicked its tail dismissively as it slithered toward the undergrowth. If it had shoulders, it would have called _I don’t need luck_ over one of them. As it was, it just said it normally.

Mission accomplished, Harry thought to himself. Snakes were incurable gossips, even the ones that were usually solitary. What one snake knew, all the snakes in the area knew. It was probably an evolutionary adaptation of some sort, but in practice, it mostly meant that the snakes would find Harry now rather than him having to crawl through more bramble patches to track them down.

“Harry?” Remus called in the distance. “I’m doing laundry. Do you have anything you want washed?”

“One second,” Harry shouted back, and he picked his way nimbly back toward the cottage.

When he emerged into the clearing, it was to the sight of Remus hanging a load of his own laundry up on the clothesline. Sirius was watching the process with one eye open from the porch but seemed relaxed. His doggy eyebrows went up when he turned his attention to Harry, and the sight was apparently enough that he felt the need to become human-shaped.

“Remus,” he said. “Look at the size of this Bowtruckle. Merlin. Did you get in a fight with a tree?”

Remus turned to look at Harry. “I can’t tell if this means your snake hunt was a success or not.”

“It was!” said Harry, who maybe had a few twigs in his hair and some mud on his jeans, but certainly not enough for the fuss they were making. “I talked to one that was sunning itself by the stream over that way,” he gestured in the direction he had come from. “It left when it got warm enough because it wanted to have a vole.”

“Not bad, voles,” said Sirius thoughtfully. “Better than mice and rats, if a bit on the small side.”

Harry nodded. “The snake said they’re really good.”

Remus looked between them, clearly calculating whether this was worth commenting on. He lost whatever argument he was having in his head and decided against it. “Are you done in the woods for today?” he asked instead. “If you are, I can throw that outfit in with the next load of wash.”

“Maybe not,” Harry said. “The sunning spot by the stream is really interesting. Do you have a book about aquatic insects? There were these little worm things.”

“Don’t like worms,” said Sirius.

“He’s never forgiven me for taking him to the vet to get a shot for heartworms,” Remus explained. “I don’t know if I have a book. Show me the worms? You can come too, if you’d like, Sirius.”

“Don’t like worms,” Sirius muttered again, but he trailed after them anyway.

Harry guided the two men back to the stream and pointed out the worm things in the shallows.

“Huh,” said Sirius, looking down at the half-burrowed little creatures. They opened and closed their maybe-mouths and swayed a bit. “Those sure are worms.”

“Crane fly larvae if I had to guess,” said Remus, squinting. “I can see about finding you a field guide if you’d like.”

Harry nodded. Remus’s answer seemed plausible enough, but he would never say no to a field guide. The one on reptiles and amphibians that Remus had given him somewhat belatedly for his birthday—not that he blamed him for the delay, Sirius’s arrival had, ha, seriously thrown a wrench in the works—had been excellent.

“It’s nice here,” Sirius said. He shifted back into a dog, hopped onto Harry’s lopsided rock, and curled up.

“Are you really—” Remus began.

Sirius let out a very pointed, obviously fake snore.

“It is nice,” said Harry. “See? There’s fish.”

“So there are,” Remus agreed. “Speaking of fish, do you want fish and chips for lunch? There’s a good place in Muggle London, and I can pick up three orders.”

There was a soft, affirmative woof from Sirius’s direction. Harry shrugged. “Never had fish and chips,” he said.

“Well,” said Remus. He had the expression on his face that he got whenever he remembered that Harry had been living in a cupboard under the stars up until a little more than a week ago. “I’m betting you’ll like it, but I can whip up some noodles or sandwiches if you don’t.”

Harry had yet to meet a food he didn’t like, so he suspected Remus was right. “That sounds good,” he said.

“Great!” said Remus. “Let me start another load of laundry, and then I’ll head out. Do you want to come with and pick out drinks?”

“More Apparating?” Harry asked.

“More Apparating.”

“Can we get dessert too, then?”

“I don’t see why not.”


	12. Chapter 12

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thank you all for your kind comments. this fic is incredibly self-indulgent, so the fact that it's making other people happy too is 10/10. anyway, this chapter brought to you by my latest trip to the grocery store where I learned about the existence of a new fruit. and who says adulthood is boring?
> 
> cw: panic attack mentioned although not had, no details

“What the fuck is that?”

“Don’t say ‘fuck’ in front of Harry,” said Remus, despite the fact that he accidentally taught Harry a new swear word at least twice a day. “And it’s a peach.”

“I know what a peach is,” Sirius grouched. “I meant _that_.”

“Oh,” said Remus. He squinted. “A pomelo.”

“Which is?” 

Remus shrugged. “I don’t know. That’s just what the sign says.”

“Looks like a grapefruit and a cantaloupe had a baby,” Harry mused.

The three of them regarded the weird-looking green fruit with interest. They were, Harry noticed, failing to blend in. Along with acquiring food, this grocery store trip was meant to help him and Sirius practice interacting with real humans, albeit of the non-magical variety. 

Sirius had spent an uncomfortably long time smelling a ham steak. Harry had nearly had a panic attack when Remus offered him the choice between two almost identical, brightly-colored breakfast cereals. (It had not been a trick question in which both answers were wrong; Remus just genuinely didn’t care what form his refined carbs and sugar took in the morning.) They were getting some odd looks, but Remus seemed to have ascended beyond the point of embarrassment or awkwardness. 

“Would you like to buy one to try?” Remus hazarded.

“What if we don’t prepare it correctly, and then we die because it’s secretly toxic?” Sirius asked.

Harry had not considered the possibility of toxic fruit before, but judging by the look on Remus’s face, it was one of Sirius’s irrational thoughts, not something that would feature heavily in his life. He hoped. Magical grocery shopping remained a harrowing experience, and he couldn’t blame Sirius for being a bit odd about food. 

“I don’t think they’d leave it out on display like that if you could kill someone with it,” Remus said reasonably, which Sirius seemed to reluctantly believe. “We don’t have to get one, though. How about clementines instead?”

Sirius gave the pomelos one last suspicious look, but he went to fetch a bag of clementines without further argument. 

They were both a bit on edge. Remus had asked them how they felt about having a dinner party and, after being assured that he could hide under Remus’s bed as a dog the entire time, Sirius had shrugged and agreed. Harry, like a fool, had also agreed. 

Harry hated dinner parties. They were noisy, annoying to cook for, and hard to clean up after. However, during a brief lapse in judgment, he had decided that he trusted Remus and maybe things wouldn’t be so bad.

He ought to know better than to make decisions when he felt good about life, but he’d had so few opportunities to practice that he supposed a few mistakes were bound to happen. Now here he was, feeling as if death were imminent. Was it too late to ask Remus to cancel? Considering the party was to be this evening, he thought it probably was. 

It wasn’t going to be a big dinner party, at least. Just the Grangers and the Weasleys save for Bill, who had to work, and Charlie, who was maybe in the process of being eaten by a dragon if his mother was to be believed.

It didn’t help much to remember that Sal Granger was probably more nervous about the party than Harry was, no matter how many times he repeated it to himself. The man had been exchanging near-daily owls with Remus in an effort to reassure himself that it was safe to send his daughter into a wildly unstable community full of people who thought riding around on broomsticks was a perfectly reasonable way to travel, all haunted by a very recent, very bloody civil war. He also seemed skeptical about the academic merits of a school named after warts on a pig, for which Harry couldn’t blame him. He himself had similar thoughts. 

Speaking of Remus and school, he had a point when he said it might be nice for Harry to know some of his classmates before he arrived at Hogwarts. That was another point in the party’s favor. 

This was all very well, but there weren’t any rhetorical appeals Harry could make to himself that changed the fact that he wanted to hide under the bed with Sirius when he thought about interacting with his peers and their parents. The Weasleys were perfectly lovely, he reminded himself. And Hermione, though he hadn’t met her, liked books. Most people that liked books were nice too. Also, Sirius smelled like a dog. That wasn’t necessarily a bad thing, but it was undoubtedly pungent. 

“It’s been a while since I cooked for a crowd,” Remus mused aloud, pulling Harry from his thoughts. “Lily was usually the one that cooked when we all got together. And Molly cooked for Order meetings, although sometimes we ordered Muggle takeout when she was too busy with the boys.”

Harry wasn’t sure what to say to that, but Sirius patted Remus on the shoulder. “Don’t worry about it. Hard to go wrong with a cottage pie.”

“James would manage.”

“Yeah,” Sirius agreed after a thoughtful moment. “Yeah, he would.” To Harry, he said, “James was morally opposed to reading recipes completely. Following steps in the order they’re listed. Most parts of cooking, really.”

Harry absorbed that information. “Can we get Muggle candy?”

“Yes,” said Remus. “Why?”

“Who needs a reason?” Sirius shot back. 

“The Weasleys told me about magical candy and gave me some chocolate frog cards,” Harry explained. “They asked about Muggle candy, but I’ve never had much of it.”

“Pick out what looks interesting,” Remus said. “And if they’ve got violet mints, would you mind grabbing me a pack? And a bar of chocolate for Sirius. It’s good for Dementor exposure. You won’t learn that until your sixth year Defense class, though.”

Harry agreed and went to the aisle containing the sweets and other snacks, reflecting that it was a good thing Sirius could eat chocolate despite the thing where he was sometimes a dog.

He got a chocolate bar and then several more because they contained different nuts, marshmallow fluff, and peanut butter. He found the noxious violet mints Remus was so fond of, easy to spot with their violently purple packaging. From there, he was at a loss. There were a lot of options, and everything was brightly-colored. He settled on an innocuous-looking package of mixed hard candies and returned to where Sirius and Remus were debating the relative merits of instant mashed potatoes. 

There were already real potatoes in their shopping cart, so the argument didn’t seem to have a point. They kept it up amiably all through the check-out line to the obvious amusement of the cashier anyway. They only paused the discussion when Remus Apparated them back to the cottage.

Ugh. Harry had yet to get used to Apparating, for all that Remus assured him he would. 

He stood uncertainly in the kitchen while Remus put the groceries away, unsure of what to do or expect now. There was still time to flee into the woods or wedge himself under a heavy piece of furniture.

Sirius, chocolate bar in tow, sprawled in front of the fireplace in his human shape. Apparently, he had decided not to think about and therefore not to worry about the semi-strangers soon to invade his home. He offered Harry a square, then kept munching contentedly.

“You’ll feel sick if you eat that entire thing,” Remus warned. 

“I feel sick most of the time anyway,” Sirius pointed out. “I might as well have chocolate.” 

Remus didn’t seem to have an answer for that.


	13. The Dinner Party

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> you are all very nice, and also had me convinced to try a pomelo, only the store I shop at doesn't have them in stock anymore. here one day, gone the next. anyway! new chapter, it's the dinner party, the [UN report](http://www.fao.org/3/i3253e/i3253e00.htm) helen mentions didn't actually come out until 2013 i think but we're going to pretend it came out in like 1990 instead. 
> 
> The books Hermione mentions are off of [this list](https://www.si.edu/encyclopedia_si/nmnh/reptshrt.htm) and I haven't read either of them so.
> 
> cw alcohol mention but not like, abuse, just a glass of wine

Despite Harry’s best wishes, the clock continued to tick, and time marched inexorably forward. The hour of the dinner party drew ever nearer, and the closer it got, the more nervous Sirius became. Harry wasn’t sure why. 

He wasn’t worried about being caught and taken back to Azkaban, from what Harry could tell. According to the boring early morning radio program Remus listened to, the most recent speculation was that Sirius had drowned somewhere in the North Sea. The longer Britain’s general magical population went without spotting him, the more likely the talking heads seemed to think that was. 

Sirius, he thought moodily while peering into the oven at the cottage pie Remus had spent so much time fussing over, wasn’t even going to have to make polite conversation. He could hide under Remus’s bed, or even in the storm cellar where Remus weathered full moons if he wanted to. There was no chance of anyone disturbing him there. 

He watched as Sirius reached for a cup of tea that had long since gone cold and immediately felt guilty for his uncharitable thoughts. The man’s hands were shaking even worse than usual. They shook a bit anyway, a byproduct of one of the potions he took every morning, but the nerves certainly weren’t helping. He managed to pick the mug up but sloshed cold tea down his front and dropped it in surprise. It shattered. The look on his face was somewhere between anger and resignation. 

Remus, who had been watching events unfold slightly more subtly than Harry had been, swooped in immediately.

“It’s okay,” he said in a low, soothing voice. “We can fix it.”

“I ruin everything I touch,” said Sirius, and Harry would have flinched at the viciousness in his voice only it was clearly directed inward. 

“You don’t,” Remus said. “Here, it’s an easy fix.”

He pressed his wand into Sirius’s hand, and when the other man proved to be shaking too badly to aim, folded his hand over Sirius’s own and kept the wand steady. “ _Reparo_ ,” they said together, and the scattered pieces of the mug came back together.

“See?” said Remus, scooping the mug off the floor and presenting it to Sirius. “It’s fine.” 

“Fine,” Sirius repeated, staring at it. He shook himself. “Merlin. I’m sorry I’m such a goddamned disaster.”

“You’re not a disaster,” Remus assured him. 

“Please spare me the talk about coping with trauma,” Sirius said.

“Oh,” Harry said, surprised. “He’s tried to give that to you too?”

Both men looked over at him, startled. They seemed to have forgotten he was there. 

“It’s important to know that none of the things that have happened to you—Azkaban, the Durselys, whatever—are your fault,” Remus said with dignity. “And however you’re coping with them, you’re doing the best that you can. Even if you feel like you’re not doing well enough or going about it the right way. Unhealthy coping mechanisms can help you get through something until you’re in a position where you can develop better ones.”

This was quite a speech, Harry reflected, and it did contain some good points. Harry had quickly learned that nothing he did would ever be good enough and that even if he were perfect, Aunt Petunia and Uncle Vernon would be able to find a flaw, so he didn’t blame himself for failing to live up to their expectations. No one could. Therefore it wasn’t his fault that he didn’t. Sirius, on the other hand, seemed to feel guilty every time the sun went behind a cloud or Remus had a headache despite controlling neither the weather nor lycanthropy. 

Rather than stick around to discuss it, Sirius bolted for the storm cellar. Remus sighed, staring after him. “Are you alright?” he asked, and Harry blinked.

“Yes,” he said. All he had done was sit here. It wasn’t exactly a difficult activity. 

“It’s alright if you’re not,” Remus told him. “It can be hard to see an adult—someone who’s supposed to have control of themselves—get upset like that.”

Harry thought back to Uncle Vernon, frequently purple with rage, and the icy look that usually adorned Aunt Petunia’s face. An upset Sirius was hardly noteworthy. “He’s mad at himself, not me,” Harry pointed out after a moment’s thought. “Even if he should be mad at You-Know-Who instead. I’ve got nothing to be upset about.”

Remus appeared to consider this. Harry wasn’t sure whether he thought he had a point or simply didn’t want to upset Harry before guests arrived. Either way, he nodded rather than saying anything else on the subject. “Do you want to help me set the table?” he asked instead. 

“Sure,” said Harry. 

Setting the table wasn’t so bad since Remus didn’t own nice china, and anything Harry broke could be fixed in a heartbeat. Remus went to bring Sirius a snack and a blanket in the meanwhile.

He was just setting the last of the forks down when a green fire burst into being in the fireplace. Harry stared at it, utterly nonplussed. 

“That’ll be the Grangers,” said Remus. “Um. Do me a favor and don’t mention this to Amelia?”

Harry drew an x over his heart almost absently, watching as a dark shape grew in the fireplace. A moment later, Helen Granger stumbled out. She looked around. “That,” she declared, “is the oddest thing that’s ever happened to me.”

A girl around Harry’s age popped out of the fire a moment later. “Wicked,” she breathed.

After almost a full minute, Sal Granger joined his wife and daughter. He looked a little ill. “What did you think, honey?” Helen asked.

“I think I’m going to be sick.”

Remus hurriedly directed him to the bathroom. “Anyway,” he said once Sal was safely retching behind a closed door. “Welcome to my home. I hope the trip wasn’t too bad.”

The girl, who must be Hermione given the fact that her eyes are fixed firmly on Remus’s bookshelf, perked up even further. “It was simply fascinating,” she said. “Tell me, how does it work, exactly? It’s not like Apparating—that’s teleportation by a different name. I know we technically traveled the distance between our fireplaces but were we still deconstructed on a molecular level? How can you know you’re going to get put back together correctly?”

“Um,” said Remus.

“Hermione,” said Helen.

Was this what love was? Harry stared at the girl consideringly. No, he decided. Probably not. He was experiencing a very similar feeling to the one he got when discovering a new type of snake. It wasn’t love; it was fascination. 

“Remus said you like books?” he blurted out.

Three heads swiveled toward him. “Yes,” said Hermione a bit cautiously. “Do you?”

“I love books,” Harry told her. “And snakes. Books about snakes are really great too.”

“I haven’t read many books about snakes,” Hermione said. “At least not exclusively. I read _Reptile Ecology_ last year, and I read _Snakes: A Natural History_ this summer.”

“That’s a good one!” Harry said enthusiastically. “What sort of books do you like?”

Had Harry been paying attention, he would have seen Remus and Helen exchange an amused glance over his head. As it was, he was far too engrossed listening to Hermione’s response. She, as it turned out, wanted to be a paleoanthropologist. Harry was only tangentially interested in the field, being utterly charmed by the concept of evolution but fairly ambivalent about humans. He got the feeling that he was going to get much more familiar with it if he spent much more time around Hermione. 

They were having an in-depth conversation about the peppered moth when Sal staggered out of the bathroom to stare at them. “Are all magical children like this?” he asked Remus in an undertone. 

Remus didn’t manage to answer before the Weasleys begin tumbling out of the fireplace. 

“Hi, Harry!” Ron said, brushing ash off of himself. “Don’t eat anything the twins give you. They got their hands on Cockroach Clusters somehow.”

“Insects are a very sustainable source of protein,” Hermione said. “Do you think they’d let me try one?”

“You want to eat a Cockroach Cluster?” Ron asked. “Badass.”

“Ronald,” said Molly. “Watch your language.”

“Badbutt,” Ron corrected, not blinking. It was somehow much worse.

“Hi, Harry,” Ginny said, emerging from the fireplace. “The twins brought magical candy for you to try. Please make sure I’m somewhere I can see your face when you do. Not for any reason, though. Are you Hermione? It’ll be nice to have another girl around. Do you like sports?”

“Horse racing,” said Hermione, once again uncertain.

“That’s a weird one,” Ginny told her. “I wasn’t expecting that. I like that. Is it dangerous?”

“Oh, yes,” said Hermione, brightening. “People get hurt all the time.”

“Perfect,” said Ginny. “Mum, I’m going to race horses when I grow up.”

Molly ignored her with the ease of long practice. “You must be the Grangers,” she said warmly. “I’m Molly, and this is my husband, Arthur—who is evidently still wrangling the twins and not here. I wish him luck.”

Helen introduced herself and Sal, who seemed only marginally more overwhelmed than normal. That was probably a good sign, Harry thought.

“I got Muggle candy for you guys to try,” he told Ron. “I don’t think it’s got any bugs in it, though.”

“You told him?” Ginny demanded. “Spoilsport.”

“I want him to like me,” Ron protested, then turned red. “Erm. I mean. I think being friends would be cool?”

“Very cool,” Harry agreed. “If you want, I mean. You too, Hermione.”

“I’ve never had friends,” Hermione said thoughtfully. “I suppose it will be interesting to try. Isn’t it supposed to happen organically, though?”

Harry shrugged. “I’ve never had friends either,” he confessed.

They both turned to Ron. The taller boy gave them a palms-up gesture. “I’ve had friends before,” he said, then considered his statement. “Only, Luna is more Ginny’s friend, and Lee is more Fred and George’s friend. So, maybe not.”

Now they all look at Ginny. “Luna lives next door,” she said. “It just sort of happened.”

“Hmm,” said Hermione. “Proximity. I suppose this counts, then.”

“Cool,” said Ron. 

The twins appeared out of the fireplace, smudged and disheveled. A balding, red-haired man followed them. He looked exasperated. “Sorry we’re late,” he said. 

“Where’s Percy?” Molly asked. “I told him to come.”

“Says he needs to study, then said he wasn’t going to spend another minute around the twins,” Arthur replied promptly. “Who are very much grounded when we get home.”

Molly turned to look at Fred and George or George and Fred. Harry wasn’t sure who was who today. “What did you do?”

“Nothing,” said the twin on the right.

Very slowly, Molly blinked. She didn’t say anything, but it was effective nonetheless. 

“Set a sock on fire in front of his room,” the twins muttered in unison. 

“But it was dirty!” the left twin added as if that made it better. 

“We were just trying to smoke him out, honest,” said the right twin. 

Molly turned to Remus. “Please tell me you have wine.”

“Red or white?”

“I could not care less.”

“White,” said Arthur. “Red gives her a headache.”

“The tannins,” Helen said sympathetically. “Me too.”

He wasn’t nervous, Harry realized. There was far too much happening, and he wanted to try a Cockroach Cluster. “Save the candy for after dinner,” said Molly, adding another mark to Harry’s mental tally of reasons she could maybe read minds. “Insect-related or otherwise.”

“Oh, does the magical world do much cooking with insects?” Helen asked. “I’ve been meaning to try baking with cricket flour since that UN report came out.”

They sat down to eat soon after that. The cottage pie was excellent, and Harry was left with the unfamiliar warm feeling that came along with spending time with friends. He found himself actually looking forward to Hogwarts rather than viewing it as a distant inconvenience, and even Sal had calmed down a bit if the small smile on his face while he watched Helen and Molly debate some political point was anything to go by. 

The Cockroach Clusters, it was universally agreed upon by all but Remus, were tolerable but would be far better with a salted caramel drizzle over the top. Remus ate them like chips, to the awe of the twins and everyone else’s mild horror. Clearly, Harry thought, the violet mints had ruined his tastebuds.


	14. Helen's Interlude

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this isn't actually relevant to the plot, it's just Helen and Molly getting brunch and me fleshing some stuff out so.
> 
> cw racism, suicide, and teenage pregnancy all mentioned in passing

“Helen! Over here!” Molly called. 

Helen Granger turned and spotted the other woman standing on the corner next to the Leaky Cauldron. “Oh, there you are, Molly,” she said. “It’s lovely to see you again.”

“You too,” said Molly, steering them inside. “Listen, I wanted to apologize for the dinner party last night. Remus had mentioned that Sal gets nervous around new people, and I know we can be rather a lot.” 

“Don’t even worry about it,” Helen assured her. “He might not look it, but Sal’s from a big family. His mother’s side is Italian, and I know he misses them.”

“Hard to travel?” Molly asked sympathetically, flagging down a server. 

“Oh, no,” said Helen with a slight smile. “They’ve refused to talk to him since he married me.” 

“You? Why not?” Molly asked.

The women eyed each other. Or rather, Helen eyed Molly while Molly blinked at her, politely uncomprehending.

“Well,” said Helen. Minerva has mentioned that there wasn’t much discrimination on the basis of race when she’d pulled her aside to ask what she was really getting her daughter into, but staring that fact in the face was still disconcerting. Of course, the blood purity nonsense was the same general thing, but that wasn’t something visible. Hermione could hide that if it was ever necessary. Helen hoped it wouldn’t be. “My parents immigrated from Jamaica in the 1950s, for a start,” she said, realizing that she had been quiet for a moment too long. “And Muggles have some...unfortunate ideas about race. And immigration, for that matter.” 

“Ah,” said Molly. “I think I understand. My parents threw me out when...well. I tell the kids it was for marrying their father, and that’s true, but it was also the fact that I was pregnant with Bill before that.” 

“What’s so objectionable about Arthur?” Helen wanted to know. She expected ideas about having children out of wedlock were similar in the magical world so that was self-explanatory, but the man had seemed quite sweet. He had even managed to charm Sal with some of his descriptions of magical bureaucracy, and that was no mean feat. 

Molly drew herself up, body language shifting. Even though she was a head and a half shorter than Helen, she still managed to look down her nose. “Oh, the Weasleys?” she asked. “A rather milk in first sort, don’t you think, darling?”

The effect was ruined a bit by the grin that split Molly’s face a moment later, but Helen got the point.

“A posh sort, then?”

“Oh, you have no idea,” Molly said. 

“Do you miss them?” 

She shrugged. “Sometimes. Of course, they were both killed in the war. No hope for reconciliation there. But sometimes I wonder if they lived if things could have been different.”

“I’m sorry for your loss.” 

“It was years ago. I miss my brothers more. More war casualties,” Molly explained at Helen’s curious expression.

“Still,” Helen said. It was odd to think that the woman before her had lived through such violence. She didn’t look it. 

They both ordered black coffees, and when Molly ordered a cinnamon roll, Helen did too. They got a tray of fresh fruit to split. 

“I know you’re worried about your daughter,” Molly said once the server had brought their food. She was assiduously adding sugar packets to her coffee as she talked. “I’ve had two children graduate from Hogwarts and five more that, Merlin willing, will follow. Ask me anything.”

Helen had roughly a million and five questions, but she settled on the most pressing of them. “Is it safe?”

Molly seesawed the hand not holding the next sugar packet. “There’s a forest that borders the grounds. It contains some rather dangerous creatures. The Defense position is cursed, but students don’t usually get caught in the crossfire from that. Flying is about as safe as driving, according to a study Arthur’s office did a few years back, which isn’t very.” 

“Back up,” said Helen. “The Defense position is cursed?”

“Well, there’s no proof, but no one has held the post for more than a year since 1955. At a certain point, coincidences are pretty damning.”

“1955,” Helen repeated. “And students don’t _usually_ get caught up in whatever happens?”

“Usually,” Molly agreed. “Overall, it’s safe though. I think the last student that was actually killed if you discount the war, accidents, and suicides was back in the forties.” 

Helen unwound her cinnamon roll, setting the soft center aside to eat when she was done with everything else. Best for last. “About the war,” she said, pretending she didn’t see Molly’s frown lines deepen momentarily. “Minerva mentioned that not everyone would look kindly on Hermione because Sal and I don’t have magic.”

“That’s true, unfortunately.”

“Was Minerva telling the entire truth? Was she downplaying anything? She seems nice, of course, but she’s a school representative, and it’s in her best interest to convince us to send Hermione there.” 

Molly bit her bottom lip. “I’m a pureblood,” she said finally. “Arthur is too. We fought against You-Know-Who in the war, but that was a matter of ideology, not survival. That’s all to say that I’m by no means an expert. Are things better than they were for Muggle-borns then? It would be difficult for them to be worse. Will Hermione have an easy time? Probably not. She’ll have to work twice as hard for half the recognition, and there will always be those who look down on her for who she is.” 

“I’m familiar with how that goes,” Helen said, thinking about the past thirty-some years of her own life. 

“You want what’s best for her,” Molly said kindly. “That’s Hogwarts. I know it’s foreign and frightening, but it will open up a world of opportunities for her. And who knows? There’s no telling what will have happened politically by the time she graduates. It won’t be easy for her, but she’ll succeed.”

Given how stubborn her daughter was, Helen was pretty confident Molly was right. She had more questions though, things she hadn’t wanted to bring up to Minerva. She didn’t want to bias the woman against Hermione if she asked something she disapproved of. Molly, on the other hand, didn’t have any power over Hermione’s future and was friends with Remus, who, if she was picking up on the correct implications in his letters to Sal, was rather radical when it came to the political scene. She was as safe as anyone to talk to. 

“Speaking of politics, what are they like now? Did you have a magical version of Margaret Thatcher? Because you’d be hard-pressed to do any worse than that.” Helen shuddered at the thought. 

“Millicent Bagnold was Minister during the war. Didn’t do much, which is sometimes the best that can be said for a politician. Now we’ve got Fudge. He’s...not Thatcher if the stories Arthur told about her were true. That’s about the best that can be said for him though. He’s incompetent, annoying, and his fashion sense is despicable.” 

“His name is really Fudge?” Helen couldn’t help but ask.

“Unfortunate, isn’t it? It suits him.”

They both snickered. Helen popped the center of her cinnamon roll into her mouth. It was, as expected, excellent. Everyone expected her to hate sweets, being a dentist. Clearly, no one had considered that sugar was both delicious and the primary reason she had a job. 

“Minerva gave me all of the syllabi and accreditation information I asked her for,” Helen said, turning back to the matter at hand. “I’m afraid none of it means much to me though. Is Hogwarts as good as she says? Hermione is...well. You saw her last night. She’s very bright, sometimes to the point that it frightens me. I don’t want her to feel stymied, but I’d also like it if she made friends that weren’t books.”

“History is fairly useless, as far as classes go,” Molly said thoughtfully. “The professor is a ghost that’s been there since sometime last century, and he’s not terribly engaging or up to date on current events, but there’s some sort of obscure bylaw preventing him from being exorcised. Defense is a bit of a mixed bag since there’s a different professor every year. The other classes are all taught by people who are among the best and brightest in their fields. Their teaching abilities vary.”

“More interested in their research than their students?” Helen asked, thinking back to her days as an undergraduate. 

“Got it in one. Still, the students usually manage. And Hermione seems the type that could learn despite a teacher rather than because of them.”

“Is she ever,” said Helen. “And she seemed to get on alright with Harry and your kids.”

“If she’s not phased by Fred and George, most of what the magical world throws at her won’t be too overwhelming,” Molly assured her. “Those two, honestly.” 

“I’m still not sure which was which,” Helen confessed. 

“They like to believe they’re very clever, but when Fred smirks because he thinks he’s pulled one over on you, the right side of his mouth goes up. George is just the opposite.” 

“Spend a lot of time smirking, do they?”

“With and without the involvement of burning socks,” Molly confirmed. “They’re lucky I like to knit.”

“Oh, do you?” Helen said, brightening. “I’ve been trying to learn, but I’m terrible with that sort of spatial thinking. My mother gave up on teaching me by the time I was sixteen.” 

“I’m lucky that sort of thing comes naturally to me,” Molly said, adding a bit self-deprecatingly, “now, if Arithmancy came as easily, I’d be living a very different life. Do you want to come to my knitting circle sometime? All skill levels are welcome, and between the lot of us, we ought to be able to show you a thing or two.”

“An audience for my struggles?” Helen asked dryly. “How could I resist?”

“That’s the spirit!”

Most of Helen’s worst fears had been eased, if not assuaged entirely, and she was about to relax when she caught sight of the paper a man two tables over was reading. “What about Sirius Black?” she found herself asking. 

“What about him?”

“Is he…” Helen trailed off. Is he what? A threat? As much of a monster as the Daily Prophet claimed? 

“I didn’t know him well,” Molly said. “You’d be better off asking Remus, but then again, I’d hate to dredge up feelings better left buried for that poor boy. He’s had a hard enough time as it is.” She shook her head. “I don’t know all of the details, but from what I’ve heard, he sold Harry’s parents out to You-Know-Who. The Death Eaters and blood purists hate him because Lily—Harry’s mother—killed their lord. The rest of the world hates him for siding with You-Know-Who. Then, of course, he also killed all of those Muggles.”

“I’ve read about Lily Potter in some of the books Hermione picked up at Flourish and Blotts,” Helen said rather than reflect on the fact that one man had caused so much damage or how the deaths of a dozen people were an afterthought simply because they weren’t magical. “No one seems to agree whether it was her or Harry that defeated that man.”

“It was Lily,” Molly said firmly. “Harry was just a baby, but there are certain elements of our population that would rather believe a baby defeated You-Know-Who rather than a Muggle-born woman.”

“Lily was Muggle-born?” 

Helen hadn’t actually come across any mention of famous Muggle-born witches or wizards, though she’d scoured the books Hermione brought home. She hadn’t had a good feeling about the reason they seemed to have been left out of history. 

“It wouldn’t have been mentioned,” Molly told her. “The Ministry never liked her when she was alive. Too radical, too outspoken. Married too well for them to shut her up.”

“And then she was a martyred hero.”

“And there was no one left to control the narrative they spun about her,” Molly said. “But I knew her. I knew her.”

Helen took in the sad, far off expression on her friend’s face and changed the subject back to knitting while they picked over the remains of the fruit tray. She hoped desperately that things had changed for the better by the time Hermione was an adult.


	15. Chapter 15

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this chapter took ages for me to be even remotely satisfied with, but hopefully you all like it! thank you all for your great comments and apologies for not replying to some/most of them, i used all of my replying-to-things energy on alternative-to-a-thesis project revisions.
> 
> anyway! the return of a popular character

After the excitement of the dinner party, Harry expected things to calm down, at least until it was time for him to leave for Hogwarts. Instead, he awoke the next morning to the sound of shouting. He blinked up at his blurry ceiling, uncertain where he was for a moment.

Remus’s cottage, right. He wasn’t back in his cupboard cringing away from Aunt Petunia’s morning tirade. So, why the yelling? He couldn’t make out the words from here, muffled as they were by distance and several walls.

Shrugging to himself, he snagged his glasses and slid his feet into the hideously ugly but very toasty slippers Remus had bought him. He went to check things out, only hesitating for a moment. Even a week ago, he would have huddled under his quilt until the noise stopped. Now though, with the dinner party having gone so well he wasn’t even left with the usual lingering sense of dread he experienced after most social interactions, he felt confident enough to explore a bit.

As he snuck down the ladder and then the hallway, he could see that Remus was sitting at the table, nodding sympathetically at the person shouting. Whoever it was, Harry reflected, their voice sounded familiar. Their lung capacity was admirable too. Sirius was also at the table, head in his hands either due to annoyance or exhaustion. Remus had still been trying to coak him out of the storm cellar when Harry went to bed the previous evening, so he suspected they hadn’t slept much, if at all.

Harry continued to ghost down the hall until he could see around the corner where the source of the yelling was standing. He hadn’t been sure what to expect. The voice didn’t belong to McGonagall or Amelia, and he couldn’t think of anyone else that would yell at Remus unless—

“Ulnar!” he said, excited to see the elderly goblin again. He was, Harry had decided, pretty cool even if he did shout all the time.

“Dorea’s grandson!” said Ulnar, breaking off from his lecture to greet Harry in the same tone of voice. Harry decided that he was probably being mocked, but he didn’t mind. Ulnar was clearly irate about something. “Did you know you’re an accessory to a crime?”

“Um,” said Harry, able to think of several. “Which crime?”

“The right answer to that question is ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about, Ulnar, and I would like to speak to my attorney,’” said Ulnar. “Just for future reference. In case anyone from the Ministry ever asks.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about, Ulnar, and I would like to speak to my attorney,” Harry repeated dutifully, although as far as he knew, he didn’t have an attorney.

“Better, but not the point,” said Ulnar, waving his hand. “I haven’t had nearly enough coffee to teach you things on top of this nonsense.”

His gesture encompassed Remus and Sirius, both of whom had the grace to look a bit guilty. Right. In the eyes of the Ministry, Sirius _was_ guilty. By extension, Remus was too now that he was harboring a fugitive. Was Harry? He was eleven. This didn’t seem like the sort of crime he could be held accountable for, although who knew? Sirius was likely a bit biased as far as sources went when it came to the magical legal system's competence, but Harry hadn’t seen anything to indicate that he was wrong either.

“Aren’t you…” Harry trailed off, trying to remember the exact way the book he’d read had phrased it. He was determined not to put his foot in his mouth the way he had with the Gringotts door guards. “A sovereign state?”

“Not all by myself,” said Ulnar, “though yes, I’m part of one.”

“So…” said Harry. “Wizarding laws don’t really matter then, do they?”

“He’s mad about the paperwork reinstating me is going to cause,” said Sirius, uncowed by the glare Ulnar sent in his direction. “Look at him. He doesn’t care about the crimes.”

Harry looked. Ulnar blinked as innocuously as someone whose eyes were hidden by that much loose skin and wild eyebrow hair could blink.

“Oh.”

“Oh,” Ulnar repeated, then sighed. “Murder is illegal under goblin law too, you know. I do care about the crime. Helping you would be a risk. The Ministry is like a kicked Doxie nest right now. There’s no guarantee they value their relationship with Gringotts more than making an example out of you.”

“I told you, I’m innocent,” Sirius said, his tone indicating that they had already had and rehashed this argument several times before it woke Harry up. “If Fudge got his head out of his—” he cut off abruptly with a wince, a clear sign that Remus had kicked him.

“Because that’s likely?” Ulnar wanted to know.

Sirius opened his mouth to reply, although Harry was reasonably sure that had been a rhetorical question. No one seemed overly impressed with Fudge except, if Amelia were to be believed, Fudge himself.

Remus interrupted before the conversation could devolve further. “You could pretend you don’t know Sirius is here.”

Harry got the feeling he’d already said that this morning. The argument they were having seemed to be going in circles.

“If I were a worse account manager, I wouldn’t,” said Ulnar. “I have a reputation to maintain, though. I can’t have people saying I don’t care enough about my clients to visit when there’s a personal or political tragedy.”

Based on his tone of voice, Harry got the feeling that Ulnar was being difficult on purpose, which Remus seemed to have cottoned on to.

“You don’t care about your clients,” said Remus. “Enough to visit or otherwise.”

“No one needs to know that.”

“Everyone who remembers when Sirius’s mother died knows that. The only reason you came to visit me then was because you were hoping I’d let you clear out her liquor cabinet.”

“True,” Ulnar allows. “And you did, which I appreciate. Turns out that old hag was good for something, after all. Don’t look so smug. That doesn’t prove your point.”

The two stared at each other. Harry snuck a scone off the plate in the middle of the counter. Ulnar nudged it closer to him without ceasing his staring contest with Remus. Harry knew he had liked Ulnar for a reason.

“Fine,” Ulnar said, finally relenting and growing serious. “If he puts so much as a hair out of line—”

“I won’t,” Sirius promised.

“—I will turn him over to the Ministry in a heartbeat,” Ulnar continued, undeterred. “I’ve been working with the Black accounts since Phineas Nigellus was the head of the family. I’ve dealt with far worse than the two of you.”

“That won’t be necessary,” Remus said. “We’re going to find Pettigrew and prove Sirius’s innocence. You can act as surprised as you’d like when he comes out of hiding. Until then, just put any withdrawals or deposits Sirius makes in my name, alright? No paper trail.”

“No paper trail,” Ulnar repeated. “Fine. I _will_ be visiting regularly, and if I see anything I don’t like—”

“You won’t.”

Ulnar eyed Sirius, who had spoken, and then Remus, who stared steadily at him. At last, he nodded. He placed another scone in front of Harry, picked up the plate containing the remaining half dozen or so, and was through the fireplace before anyone thought to protest.

“Sorry if that woke you,” Remus said, turning to Harry. “Would you like some tea?”

Having experienced Remus’s idea of tea, Harry declined. Remus didn’t believe in cream, sugar, proper brewing temperatures, or steeping times. The results were...potable, he guessed, but only barely.

And anyway, Sirius had mentioned offhand that caffeine stunted one’s growth. He was already shorter than Ron and Hermione and only barely taller than Ginny. Sirius wasn’t usually a reliable source of information, but he didn’t want to risk it.

“So,” said Harry, mouth half full of scone. “What was that about?”

Remus ran a hand through his hair. “Apparently, he’s tired of me dodging paperwork and, having discovered that I have a working Floo now—though God knows how—he decided to harangue me in person. Except Sirius was sitting here when he came through the fire.”

“He’s never liked me,” Sirius said.

“You say that about everyone.”

“Even if I’m wrong, the whole escaped mass murderer thing certainly didn’t improve his opinion.”

Remus conceded the point. “At any rate, he doesn’t particularly care what I get up to in my spare time, but he thinks it’s irresponsible to house an escaped felon anywhere near you, Harry.”

Harry blinked. “Is it?”

“Well, probably,” Remus allowed.

“Hey!” said Sirius.

“No offense.”

“Some offense! He’s my godson.”

“You’ve been in prison for ten years.”

“And?”

Harry took the remnants of his first scone and all of the second one Ulnar had left him, then retreated back to his room. Remus and Sirius could argue for hours, even if they were never really mad at each other. It took some adjusting to, but now that he’d spent some time around them, it was more boring than stressful. 

It was also really early. He was going to finish his scones and go back to bed.

**Author's Note:**

> Come say hi on [Tumblr](https://peonyprice.tumblr.com/).


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